email: tony@lathes.co.uk
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Smith-Drum Lathe - U.S.A.


Little known, even in its native land, the 14" x 36" (and 54" extended)  Smith-Drum was built in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Of the sliding-bed type it was able to perform both as an ordinary engine lathe (a centre-lathe in the UK) as well as take exceptionally long or large-diameter components. With the bed slid back so that a gap was opened, a huge faceplate could be mounted and the machine used for facing. Normally, the diameter capacity of a lathe is limited to the extent by which the cross slide can drawn backwards towards the operator (to get the cutting tool to the very edge of the work). The Smith-Drum overcame this restriction by forming the cross-slide ways on an extension at the front of the saddle and, most importantly,  giving it support by means of a deep bracket that reached down to the lower edge of the bed. In all other respects the lathe appears to have been conventional: a Norton-type quick-change screwcutting and feeds gearbox was fitted - though it may have benefited from the addition of a supplementary box on the output side to extend the threading range - with a rather small diameter leadscrew and an overhung powershaft for the sliding and surfacing feeds. The headstock carried a single-reduction backgear that, presumably, was able to get the speed down sufficiently to cope with facing jobs. Even a taper-turning unit was attached, making the machine genuinely useful for a wide range of ordinary work.
If you have a Smith-Drum machine tool of any kind, or any literature on the maker, the writer would be interested to hear from you



email: tony@lathes.co.uk
Home   Machine Tool Archive   Machine-tools Sale & Wanted
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Smith-Drum Lathe - U.S.A.