Thread: wartime machining

Amazing what we can do when we really have to! In the gold rush at the turn of the 20th century demand for mining gear was through the roof, and local firms lacked capacity to produce enough of it. I have an un-named lathe, 3 tons or so, that would have been produced by local engineers here in WA, and is a near copy of a British machine made by Willson. Still gets used for occasional large jobs.
Also have a 3.5 ton Cincinnati universal milling machine and attachments, produced in England early in WW2 as part of the war effort. It is a bulletproof brute of a machine. Believe that for wartime production an amp meter was fitted to the motor circuit with a red line marked at max. motor current, and operators were told to "Run it on the Red Line!"
We can be very thankful that the effort succeeded and the war did not come any closer. We now know the extent of Darwin's destruction, and the fact that every other coastal town and settlement in the North of Australia was bombed at some stage.
With the present state of our manufacturers, could we make the same effort again? I wonder. Combustor.

Originally Posted by Combustor

With the present state of our manufacturers, could we make the same effort again? I wonder. Combustor.

No because modern manufacturing requires electronic components which we do not make in Australia... We would be totally unable to design a microchip, let alone make one.... And then there is the programming as well... Also modern CAD/CAM programs and the like rely on the internet to phone home to work.... phone home usually means some server in the US.. So if communications were disrupted, the programs would not be able to phone home and thus not work and no designing be able to be done...

scraping in progress

003525 | Australian War Memorial


lathe on a jeep
112537 | Australian War Memorial

some of the visby lathes made it to New Guinea
072140 | Australian War Memorial

Type "lathe"into the awm search engine will reveal myriad pics

Here's one from an earlier war. The photo in the link shows an AFC truck-mounted mobile workshop in WW1. Note the solid tyres on the truck wheels, which would have made off-road driving difficult.

B02069 | Australian War Memorial

It is a bit hard to see, but it looks to me as though the lathe has been set up to be either treadle powered or electric motor powered. When the image is enlarged there seems to be a ring gear on the outside the big step pulley, and an electric motor beside it with a matching pinion on the shaft. The pinion appears to be disengaged from the ring gear in the photo. I cannot remember ever seeing the conversion of a treadle lathe to electric drive done this way before, so the treadle can still be used if needed. From the operator's stance he is probably using the treadle, though it is not obvious from the photo.

Perhaps the truck engine had to be running to drive a generator if electric power was to be used? If so it was probably easier to use the treadle for smaller jobs than start the truck engine. A relation still had a WW1 Leyland he used occasionally on the farm in the late forties, and persuading it to start on a cold morning without the benefit of a self starter was a major operation.

Anyone recognise the lathe?

Frank.