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There are big lathes.
And then there’s this bastard.
Last week, Peter Andreae posted a video in the MACHINIST group with the caption:
“Thought you all might get a kick out of this.”
That turned out to be a slight understatement.
The video starts at the tailstock of an enormous old Niles lathe sitting outside among the trees.
Then Peter starts walking.
And walking.
And walking some more.
You keep expecting the headstock to appear.
It doesn’t.
By the time he finally reaches the other end, you’ve aged three years and started wondering whether the operator rode a bicycle between setups.
As of this writing, the video has collected:
22,800 likes
677 comments
1,400 shares
More than 664,000 people reached
And it’s still going.
Watch the Video
Even if you know absolutely nothing about machining, the scale is impressive.
If you’re a machinist, however, you immediately start asking questions.
What the hell did they turn on it?
How old is it?
Could it still run?
And most importantly…
Who left the chuck key in it?
What Was This Thing Built For?
The casting identifies it as a Niles machine from Hamilton, Ohio.
That tracks. Hamilton was once a major American manufacturing center, known for machine tools, railroad equipment and wartime production. Niles Tool Works was part of that industrial history. The City of Hamilton still features the old Niles operation prominently in its history.
As for this specific lathe, the group quickly divided into two camps:
Camp One: Ship propeller shafts.
Camp Two: Battleship gun barrels.
Several machinists had firsthand experience with similar Niles machines.
Tony Miller wrote:
“I used to run a couple big old Niles lathes. They were shaft lathes in a shipyard. 75 to 100 feet long. The tailstocks looked the same as on that one. The bigger Niles had such a loud gearbox I used to call it the Rock Crusher.”
Roy Powell had an even better story:
“Back in the ’70s I ran a BIG Niles engine lathe at Washington Iron Works in Seattle. It was a monster—96-inch chuck, 80 feet long and two carriages that I rode on.”
According to Roy, that machine was built in 1920 to machine battleship gun barrels. He later used it for long shafts, cable drums, hydraulic cylinders and rams weighing as much as 25 tons.
Top speed?
15 RPM.
“Good times,” he added.
And these machines aren’t all dead.
Matt Eastman commented:
“I knew that was a Niles lathe before he even got to the carriage. I run one every day. 70 feet between centers.”
Imagine running a lathe so long that “between centers” sounds like driving directions.
Just Needs a Little WD-40
Naturally, a good portion of the group believed the machine could be put back into service by lunchtime.
Fred Van Hook offered the basic maintenance plan:
“Oil it down and tighten the gibs and we are good to go!!”
Simon Bale simplified it further:
“Nothing a little WD-40 can’t handle.”
Zachary Huntsman may have been slightly more realistic:
“If you can find an Olympic-sized swimming pool of Evapo-Rust, it’ll be good as new in two days.”
Grant Beneteau volunteered to help with the restoration—as long as someone else supplied the emery cloth, buffing wheels and battleship-grey paint.
Honestly, give this group a pressure washer, three angle grinders and a long weekend and someone would at least try to fire it up.
The Comment Section Went to Work
Once the restoration plan was settled, the group moved on to the important stuff.
Harry Fetter:
“Please hold .0001-inch runout…”
Brad Fortune:
“Watchmaker’s lathe!”
Bob Enderle:
“Hey Cletus, knock the branches off the old Niles and make me some 1/4-20 all-thread 40 feet long!”
Erin Brandon:
“I need a 2-56 thread on the end of an indicator point, please.”
William Valin:
“Wonder if I could Johnny Cash it and sneak it home in flat-rate boxes?”
Landon Aaron:
“I guess you pick up the chuck key with a forklift.”
Lisa Myers:
“Do not leave your chuck key in that.”
Several people were also relieved to see that the machine had been clamped to the concrete.
Michael Filler explained:
“They don’t want anyone to run off with it.”
Fair.
Without those clamps, somebody could have slipped all 40,000-plus pounds of it into a lunchbox and walked away.
Not Everyone Was Laughing
The size of the machine got everyone’s attention.
Its condition hit a nerve.
This wasn’t just an old piece of iron to many of the people commenting. It represented an era when enormous machines were designed, cast and built in American industrial cities—and then expected to run for generations.
Alfred Minio summed up the feeling:
“Shit makes me sad and depressed honestly. Seeing old equipment that was built to run forever just get left to rust always pokes at my heart a little.”
Others wanted the vegetation cleared, a roof built over it and the machine properly preserved.
But moving or restoring something this large is easier to suggest from Facebook than it is to accomplish.
Willie Palm shared a story about hauling a similar cannon lathe to the scrapyard 30 years ago. It occupied most of a 45-foot flatbed. The owner had reportedly tried to give it away for years, but nobody wanted the cost and headache of removing it.
Even the scrap value didn’t cover the crew, equipment and transportation.
Ryan Muck had a similar experience more recently:
“Just removed one this size from a paper mill. Sad, couldn’t even give it away. Scrap yard it went.”
That may be the ugly reality with machines like this.
They were built to last forever.
The buildings, companies and industries around them weren’t.
One Hell of a Piece of Yard Art
Maybe this particular Niles will never turn another shaft.
Maybe too much is missing. Maybe restoring it would cost a fortune. Maybe moving it would cost even more.
But at least it’s still there.
It didn’t get torched into manageable pieces and sold by the pound. People can walk past it, see the scale of it and get some idea of what American machine-tool builders were once capable of producing.
And every now and then, a machinist posts a video of it.
More than 664,000 people stop scrolling.
A few hundred machinists argue about what it was used for.
Someone asks if it will hold four tenths.
And someone else starts looking for an Olympic-sized swimming pool of Evapo-Rust.
That feels about right.
What would you do with it? Preserve it exactly as it is, build a roof over it—or attempt the restoration project from hell?
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Donnie Carr, Pappy Tool & Machine Co.
256-572-7110 | [email protected] | pappytool.com
