sebastian lathe question

[slugger]

I was at the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion over labor day weekend and I worked at the machine shop this year. well they ended up talking me into taking a machine home to re-furbish, clean up and get in running order.
the machine I ended up with was a Sebastian lathe company screw lathe that is belt driven. we will be running this off of a line shaft and leather belt.
does any one have any information on these.
there is a set of two gears that are connected on one shaft that I can not figure out what they do. I looks like they would be the forward and reverse mechanism but when you engage it to the main spindle that the belt turns it locks up tight and nothing will move at all??

any help you can give me would be appreciated.

slugger

[Andre' B]

Sounds like back gears.
One of the gears on that shaft should engage a gear that is bolted to or part of the pulley, the other should engage a gear that is on or part of the spindle.

There should be a way of disconecting the pulley from directly driving the spindle, a pin that gets pulled out or something, this needs to be done when the back gears are used.

Note that with the pin pulled but the back gears not engaged the pully should freely spin on the spindle, the bearings may be locked up.

Edit: found a link to a pic of some back gears on a more modern lathe.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/latheparts/page4.html

[slugger]

yup that is what I am talking about.
the back gears lock up either way you swing the lever. once you engage the back gears it locks everything up tight and nothing including the spindle moves??
I will have to look and see if there is a pin or something that will release that.
thanks for the link.

[Maurice]

Hi
I just bought on friday a sebastian Lathe Cincinnati , and the way these work is if you would want to use the back gear you have to loosen a bolt , look inside the pulley on the chuck side and you should see the bolt I`m talking about. this will let you use the back gear. If you have a problem I will take a picture to show you.
I took most of mine apart because I would like to put it as original as possible . Would you have some picture that would help me.

thanks
Maurice