Mini lathe or Tiny Hayes?

[ubeaut]

Just been going through some old photo's looking for a couple of things and came across this picture. Taken in in 1988 from memory at what was our Central Victorian School of Woodcrafts. It was a woodworkers club demo night with the late great Tiny Hayes North Queensland woodturner extraordinary.

Question:
Is that a miniature lathe or a huge man.


Answer:

They didn't call him Tiny for nothing.... That is a standard height lathe. Centre height is 42" (3" 7" or 107mm)


305791

Cheers - Neil :U

[bench1holio]

I gather he died of a back ache!:D

[Christos]

Why did you guys not provide him a stool to sit on while turning on the lathe?

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

He'd probably have found it more comfortable if he'd stood the lathe on end, like a pedestal drill! :oo:

[artme]

Love the safety boots!:rolleyes:

[Treecycle]

So just how tall was he? Is that a Golding lathe he is using?

[ubeaut]

Yep that's definitely a Golding lathe, Had 20 of them at one time, Cheap but reliable and worked really well for what they were. How tall was Tiny. Bloody tall best part of 7" but big all over, he wore the sandals all the time because ha couldn't get anything else to fit his massive feet size 16 sandals and if you look at his feet they are hanging a long way over the end of the footwear.

Voice that sounded like rumbling thunder and sometimes a temperament to to match.

Story from a reliable source who saw it goes a little like this: Tiny had 2 Asian gentlemen working for him (this is back in the late 50's early 60's) They were sitting on stools at the lathe doing repetition work. The source was a young aspiring woodturner who was just about to approach Tiny of a job. When one of Asian gentlemen sailed past him through the front door and onto the street, stool and all. The source summoned up the courage to ask Mr Hayes if he might try out for a job. You've got good timing son he roared. "Pick up that stool and get in here. You'd better be good or you and his mat will get the same treatment."

The source went on to run his own very successful turning business later in life.

From Tiny's lips: He got a job to turn 3,000 breadboards at 2/- each and only a week to do it in. He made up a quick release vacuum chuck and hung old army blankets all around his work area. the blanks were pre-cut and all he had to do was turn a moulding on the edge and a couple of v cuts on the outer edge of the face of the board.

He turned the lathe on and the vacuum chuck roughly centred the breadboard bland and proceeded at all haste. As he finished the turning he hit a foot peddle which momentarily turned off the vacuum, the finished board flew off the lathe and into the blankets, within seconds the next blank was on the chuck turned and off into the blankets. He had someone grabbond the boards to stack them ready for delivery and he could barely keep pace with Tiny's speed at churning out these randomly aimed missiles.

Tiny claimed to have finished the job in under 4 days.

A very, very interesting and talented man and one if woodturnings true characters.

Tiny left this life in 2002.

Cheers - Neil :U

PS Have one of his home made calculators which he gave to my son. Flat piece of wood with 5 holes in it through which you placed your fingers. It has a string attached and when asked what the string was for would always say with a dry snigger. That's your memory.

[chuck1]

did you ever see his belt holder and cooee stick? I got to meet the man mountain in the 1990's when my boss bought an auto Lathe off him.