Seneca Falls Star Lathe

 

Star Lathe

                       
Seneca Falls "Star" lathes were made at Seneca Falls, in New York State, U.S.A. with one of the earliest examples to find popularity being both the little 3-inch centre height "Gem" of 1889 and much better specified treadle-driven back-geared and screw-cutting model of the same era. The machines were not distinguished by any particular feature, nor did they attempt to market any unusual or out of the ordinary designs indeed, the company claimed in its literature the modest and achievable aims of "Quality, Economy, Service". Although unexciting in concept they were, nevertheless, honestly constructed from good-quality materials and achieved great popularity both in the USA and abroad, with numerous examples being exported world-wide; it is not an uncommon machine in the UK although most of the examples encountered there have been the smaller ones made just before and after 1900. Various patents were taken out by the company and some of the lathes carried the appropriate numbers cast into their beds; patent dates known (there are others, as yet undocumented) include:
June 30, 1885. August 20, 1889. November 5, 1895. February 25, 1896. April 14 1896. December 22, 1896. December 1, 1908. April 6 and May 18, 1909. January 11, 1910. June 20, 1911. February 4, 1913. February 9, 1915. November 14, 1917. November 19, 1918 and May 11, 1920.
American readers may well come across examples of wood lathes made by Seneca Falls sold under the "Crown" label or, even more rarely, as metal-turning lathes marked "Handy Lathe"; the latter were very short-bed machines

 

Advertising from popular mechanics.

 

 

For Sale on E-Bay the pictures are bad.

 

Finally managed to make the bad pictures a bit better, but it's as good as it can be, Ok that's for my skill level. 

More pictures of Star lathes, some one did do some modifications to it run with a motor.

And now a better look at the bottom part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Youtube stuff: 
Keywords: 
Lathe