Help - have you seen me before? Yates American W12

[Bruce MacDonald]

I am in the process of restoring this Yates American W12 lathe, however I have not been able to find any documentation or pics anywhere. There is nothing over on OWWM/Vintage Machinery, and nothing on the web that I can find.

This came out of a high school in Tulsa, is a 12", has a 3-phase motor on it.

If all goes as planned this will be my main lathe for the future.









My restore process is here on OWWM.
http://www.owwm.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=155974

Would appreciate any folks that have one or know of one to let me know. There are a couple things missing on mine and I would like to recreate them.

Thanks in advance!

Bruce

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I'm sorry, I'm no help, but WOW! Looks like a real beast of a machine!
Reeves variable speed? Good luck! Looks like it will be a nice stable machine to turn on.

[Bruce MacDonald]

Reeves variable speed? Looks like it will be a nice stable machine to turn on.

Yes, variable.



And it shouldn't walk on me....it is plenty heavy!

[Lloyd Keniston]

Have you tried this site?
http://vintagemachinery.org

[Bruce MacDonald]

Have you tried this site?
http://vintagemachinery.org

Yes. The closest to this machine looks to be the J70, which is really similar, but a bit different.

[Lloyd Keniston]

One more question. Have you contacted the Yates American Company? Their address is http://www.yatesamerican.com/index.html
I'll leave you alone now......

[Bruce MacDonald]

Yep, sent them emails, took forever, and they were no help at all. Here was their response:

"We no longer build, service, supply parts or information, or support these machines. Thank you for your inquiry."

Thanks for the ideas, I am just hoping that someone comes along and possibly has one of the W12's and information on it. I would sure like to know the history, so far this is the only one I have seen or can find information about. If you know of other "turning" forums or old machinery forums let me know.

Again, thanks!

Bruce