Photo Index - Oliver Machinery Co. - 159-A

Machinery Photo Index

Manufactured/Badged by:
Oliver Machinery Co.
Grand Rapids, MI

Machine Specifications
Machine Class:	Wood Working Machinery
Machine Type:	Lathe, Wood
Machine Size:	12" speed lathe
Submitted By:	Robert Champagne

Machine Specifications
Description/Model:	159-A
Date of Manufacturer:	1955-56
Serial Number:	86557
Last Updated	4/11/2012 10:48:50 AM

Comments:

I remembered that Matt Towner (NewTown) had one of these for sale, and even though he is about 5 hours away, I PM'd him to see if he still had it. Turns out he did, and that he was travelling to NH on Monday for work. We arranged a meetup halfway between in Springfield at my favorite donut shop (Donut Dip, exit 13-A I-91--if you are going by stop in, you won't be disappointed!), and I loaded this into my Honda Fit. The bed is the 60" length, and it came with welded steel legs, possibly original to the lathe (the 1958 catalogue shows steel legs) and the standard tailstock. No banjo, and missing the outboard handwheel and the under the bed clamp for the tailstock, but otherwise it is mostly there. Matt said that it came from a school shop in the Syracuse area, though it has a dealer badge from Baltimore. So far I've scraped all the rust off the bed ways, oiled up the tailstock, and cleaned a mouse nest out of the Reeves drive. I put a plug on and fired it up and she runs nicely. I'll be doing some disassembly in the headstock to make sure the mice weren't living in the windings and to clean up the Reeves assembly. The belt jumped the pulley at high speed, so I'm guessing that the pulleys might be a bit gummed up. The legs are pretty nasty looking, so I might end up painting the whole thing.

Photo 1:

Comments: Reassembled
Source: my camera

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Photo 2:

Comments: Badge
Source: my camera

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Photo 3:

Comments: Headstock
Source: my camera

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Photo 4:

Comments: tailstock
Source: my camera

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Photo 5:

Comments: view from outboard end
Source: my camera

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