All Hardinge HLV and HLV-H variants feature a continuously variable speed drive to the spindle. It starts with a 3-phase, two speed squirrel cage induction motor, rated at 500 rpm and 1500 rpm nominal (less in practice, due to slip) at 50 Hz. This would be 600 rpm and 1800 rpm at 60 Hz.
Finding a Hardinge HLV can be challenging enough, especially if, like us, you happen to be located in Europe. At 1400 lbs, shipping and handling gets complicated. In a previous post, we described the joys of forklifting the beast onto a platform trolley (with suitable structural support added to the building), to get it to the workshop, though narrow corridors and doorways. Once there, it had to be lifted off the trolley and placed directly on the floor. With no chance of being able to drive the period-correct forklift truck into the shop, we had to get creative. A hydraulic engine hoist along with slings and tacks got the job done neatly. With the lathe on the floor and properly leveled, it was time to check it over, replacing, adjusting, lubricating and cleaning parts along the way!

The best finds always pop up in the summer, when everyone else is on holidays! Still, they are not always nearby or easy to deal with. When this 1954 Hardinge HLV precision toolroom lathe appeared on the horizon, it took all of 5 minutes to decide to go for it and one week of frantic international phone calls to organize everything. An engineer was sent to check it over, local transportation to an industrial machinery crating facility, international transportation, more local transportation and another week later it was finally in our yard!
A rather optimistic gentleman arrived with a Presto MRC-16 disk recording lathe, inquiring about the possibility of repairing the broken suspension and making a cutter head bracket from scratch. He then asked about the possibility of figuring out some way in which lead-in, lead-out, and track mark spirals could be cut on this machine, which was originally intended as a very basic machine, with no provision for spirals, not even a hand crank. Then came the really ambitious part: He would ideally like to be able to adjust the pitch and if possible, control the lathe through his computer!
One glance at the steampunk aesthetic of the manufacturer's name plate and the overall state of this primitive machine would have been enough to deter the average engineer, in fear that there might be something potentially radioactive hiding within...
Swiss Precision Engineering: The legendary Schaublin 102 precision lathe with parts of a Simonet lathe in the Agnew Analog laboratory! These pictures are from a 2016 restoration project, documented on the Agnew Analog website. Read the full report here: Schaublin 102 Swiss Precision Lathe Restoration
