FILENAMES: lion1.jpg lion2.jpg DESCRIPTION: Pictures of "Lionel" markings on a lathe headstock adapter. Posted by UntMaintco . The following description was provided: ================================================================ From: UntMaintco (untmaintco@aol.com) Subject: Ever wonder who owned your lathe before you? Date: 2002-10-27 18:47:52 PST Hi I started wondering this very thing the last few weeks. I bought a decent South Bend 10L from a local man, was in his basement for 25 or 30 Years. It was well tooled and cared for for all those years. As I was cleaning it up I noticed a headstock adapter marked "Lionel Tool Room". I thought wow, could this have come from the Lionel train factory! I looked through the rest of the tooling for any other markings, none were found. So I said it was a fluke, one odd part hand stamped. Then I was cleaning off the collet closer hand wheel, I see a faint but visible "Lionel". I wound up calling South Bend Lathe, they gave me the number for LeBlonde, a nice lady named Rose called me back with the info, New 1946, sold to, FD company NY, NY, well not exactly what I was hoping for. Now could have this lathe been sold to the Lionel company at sometime between 1946 and 1969 when they moved? The Lionel factory was just over the river from NYC in Irvington, NJ, so that could be possible.Or perhaps, some lathe operator at the FD Company happened to be named Lionel and wanted to ID his tooling so it didnt dissappear? Does it really matter or not, would someone want a lathe just because it was in a certain factory, or is that going to far? I would guess that there is no way to truley know if a machine came from one place or another but I was surley interested to find out. So who owned your machines before you? My other machines list out as The Otis Elevator Company, a local school system, Luxo Lamp, Stimpson Rivet and who only knows? I did take a few pictures of the marked parts, I will try to put them in the drop box as lion1 and Lion2 Tom Stamford, CT