‘ve taken over a 2 car garage and three rooms in the basement and still can’t cram everything in……sadly this has to go.
This is an unmolested and fairly well tooled Rivett 608, one of the
nicest lathes ever made. This one came out of Cornell University and I
picked it up in New York. A true Ivey league lathe lol. The bed is
stamped 01 but that might a batch or something (although it was where
the serial numbers are stamped on others). The build plate (bronze
casting then) indicates the maker is the Faneuil Watch Company, meaning
its before the name change to Rivett. Likely turn of the century.

These are a special lathe, iconic as one of the best ever made.
Canadian content too….Rivett was a Canuck from Montreal who headed
south to make his fortune These lathes were not painted but the castings
were polished to shine. Imagine the effort that took, from raw
castings? They cost as much or more than mans annual salary and
generally were the purview of high end institutions, Universities and
research institutions and such. Few mere mortals got to touch one let
alone own one.

At over 100 years old its antique, but is as viable a high quality
machine tool now as when it was made Anything made today would be hard
pressed to rival the quality – when made, it was guaranteed to hold a
1/10th over 6″.

This one has very little wear. It comes complete with collet closer,
drill chuck, faceplate, extra backing plate (not shown), 3 jaw, 4Jaw,
change gears, carriage stop steady, and a nice set of collets. Screw
cutting with power feed and cross feed.

The issues with it that I know of are a broken tooth on the small gear
on the back gear shaft (photo below), broken tool holder (photo below)
and the three jaw only has the outside jaws. The first two are easy
enough fixes and later, I’d probably replace the 3 jaw as out side jaws
only are rather limiting. I started today planing on how to make those
replacement parts but stopped myself. I’ll have to live to be 800 to
finish all the projects on the list and if I start fixing that stuff
I’ll fall in love and won’t want to sell it lol.

It sits as I bought it. Its been on deck for 10 years to get some TLC
and I just have to be realistic with how much time I have and how many
machines I need.