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Machine ID’d: HARDINGE HC & HCT Chucker Metal Lathe Chucking Machines

hardinge-hct-chucker01

We’ve had a couple readers ask us questions about Hardinge HC & HCT chucking machines and metal lathes. We recently made available some more manuals for these Hardinge chucking machines. We have Hardinge operator’s, maintenance, and parts manuals for many different vintages, and for the different manual and automatic threading units that were on some of these Hardinge lathes. The Hardinge chucker lathes were workhorses, and even a worn out Hardinge HC & HCT can easily hold tight tolerances. These also had the nickname Kodak Lathe, which is explained below.

 

Hardinge Brothers, Inc. History

Hardinge Cataract lathe

1919 Hardinge Cataract Quick Change Lathe

The American Hardinge Brothers’ origins go back to 1890 in Chicago, when Franklin and Henry Hardinge began developing watchmaker lathes. They purchased the Cataract machine line from Cataract Tool and Optical Co, in 1902. In 1931 Morrison Machine Products purchased Hardinge Brothers and moved them to Morrison’s operations in Elmira, NY. Hardinge Brothers, Inc. machines are well known for their superb quality and dependability. Their popular models are the HLV and the great HLV-H precision lathes. The HC and HCT chucking machines came after WWII. These models were also know as Kodak lathes, because Kodak wanted machines to help in the manufacturing of high quality lens rings, casing, and shells. The engineers from Eastman Kodak Company actually went down to Elmira, NY to work with the engineers at Hardinge to develop these lathes specifically to help with Kodak’s production. That was the original purpose of these lathes, but these lathes also turned out to be great on other jobs as well.

 

Hardinge HCT Lathe Pictures

We received several pictures from some readers looking for information and manuals for their HCT chucker metal lathes. The first set show a HCT with serial #26300, dated 1953. The cross slide was removed for repair and cleaning, and it is missing the threading attachment, which is the “T” in HCT.

 

Hardinge HCT Automatic Threader

Threading attachment shown above

hardinge hct chucker01

Click pictures to enlarge

Hardinge HCT chucker02

This next set of pictures is of a Hardinge HCT chucking metal lathe. I’m not sure what the serial number is, but it is the same vintage of HCT lathe as the one above. Obviously, someone has added a VFD at the top left for variable speed control later, and this one is also missing the threading attachment.

 

hardinge hct chucking lathe 01 hardinge hct chucking lathe 04 hardinge hct chucking lathe 05 hardinge hct chucking lathe 03 hardinge hct chucking lathe 02

 

Hardinge Manual & Automatic Threading Unit Attachment

hardinge-automatic-manual-threading-unit

Hardinge made both a manual and automatic threading unit attachment for the chucker lathes, which were the HCT models. The Hardinge chucker lathes don’t have a quick change gearbox to switch feeds for different threads. Instead the Hardinge have a threading attachment unit that follows what is called a lead screw with a certain pitch that is placed on the back end of the spindle.

 

hardingeleadscrew

Lead Screw

Then you have to place the corresponding follower on the follower arm. This follows the lead screw which with the set pitch, and moves the tooling on the other side of the spindle so you can cut the threads. The following pitches for right-handed threads were standard: 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 48, 50 and 60. Left-handed or special pitches could be custom ordered, and blank lead screws and followers were also sold so you could grind your own threads or leads.

 

hctthreading

Follower and Follower Arm

 

 

Hardinge Lathe Catalog Information

Below are some excerpts from some Hardinge lathe catalogs about the HC and HC-AT that detail the specifications of these lathes. We also have Hardinge catalogs and bulletins in PDF format free to download here: Hardinge PDF Downloads

 

1950

1976

 

Operator’s, Maintenance, and Parts Manuals for Hardinge HC, HCT, and HC-AT

 

We have quite a few manuals available that cover the Hardinge HC, HCT, and HC-AT lathes. Here are some Hardinge manuals that would be useful for these models:

HARDINGE HC & HCT Chucking Machine Lathes Operator’s Manual

HARDINGE HC & HCT Chucking Lathe Maintenance Manual

HARDINGE HC & HCT Chucking Lathe Parts Manual

HARDINGE HC Automatic & Manual Threading Unit’s Operator’s Manual ’57

HARDINGE Automatic Threading Unit on Model HC-AT Chucking Machine Operator’s Manual

HARDINGE Automatic Threading Unit on HC Chucking Machine Maintenance Manual

 

 

Do you have a HC or HCT that you would like to share pictures or information about?

Please contact us or leave some comments below.

Posted on 9 Comments

Machine ID’d: Rockwell-Delta 17″ Drill Press with DP-600 casting.

rockwell17drillpress1

Rockwell17drillpress1

Here is a old Rockwell-Delta 17″ floor model drill press that a reader sent us pictures of to find more information about. The owner said the Rockwell drill press was used in a production facility for some time. The gentleman he bought the drill press from was 67 and said he started operating it when he was 13. This Rockwell 17″ drill press has has serial number 79-794 which dates it to 1949. In 1950 this drill press sold for $180.50 to $196.00 depending on the options, which is equivalent to $1,745.60 to $1,895.50 today. In 1949, you couldn’t pick up a quality machine like this in a garage sale.

 

Delta17drillpress1

 

It appears that this particular Rockwell-Delta 17″ drill press has a slow speed attachment, which is the pulley installed right above the column, but there is pulley on the motor with only one position. I’m not sure if the motor pulley broke at some time or not, but this is not a typical or Rockwell Manufacturing configuration. Information on the slow speed attachment is not included in the main owner’s manual, but it was used to provide more speed options for drilling. I’m guessing someone may have broken the original motor pulley, and either had or found a slow speed attachment to get at at least some speeds out of the drill press.

 

 

 

How to Identify this Rockwell Drill Press

We have operator, owner’s, and parts manuals for many different Rockwell-Delta-Milwaukee drill presses here. These older Delta machines from this vintage usually don’t have model numbers on them, and lots of people have asked us how to identify them.

 

The simplest way to identify many of these older Delta machines is by the casted part number on the main part of the machine. These Rockwell-Delta 17″ drill presses have “DP-600″ casted into the head on the arm that supports the front pulley. This is the part number for the head casting. Here is a picture showing its location on another 17” drill press.

 

Manuals for this Rockwell 17″ Drill Press

 

We have a couple manuals that would be useful with this Rockwell-Delta 17″ drill press model. We have the original operator’s and parts manual for this drill press model here:

 

DELTA-MILWAUKEE 17″ Drill Press DP-600 Instructions & Parts Manual with FOOT FEED

 

 

We also have another book that Delta published with additional information about drill press use and set ups. This book covers all the branches of drill press operation in the home workshop with over two hundred photographic illustrations and line drawings even for uses like sanding, shaping, mortising, etc…

 

It’s a really useful and interesting series of books that I recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about drill press use.

DELTA Getting the Most Out of Your Drill Press Manual

 

 

 Catalog Pages for the Rockwell 17″ Drill Press

 

Below are some pages from a 1950 Delta Milwaukee catalog about this 17″ drill press. The catalog displays the different options and accessories that were available for this model. The drill press owners manual above covers a lot of the different variations between the bench and floor models.

 

Pages from delta catalog 1950_Page_1              Pages from delta catalog 1950_Page_2

 

Do you have one of these drills, or
do you have anything else you would like to add about it’s history or use?
Please add your comments below.

 

 

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