So a couple of months ago I bought a bunch of gear off an old turner in Richmond, SA. One of these items was an old lathe he had set up for bowl turning. Attached are some photos, but below is a description. I want to restore it as a bowl lathe without a bed but would love to know more of its history. Any clues would be greatly appreciated.

It's got a cast head stock, however, the original cast bed had been cut off and bolted onto the headstock lower down to allow a larger swing. A fabricated steel bed had then been bolted to the original bed allowing a gap between it and the headstock. This is supported by a fabricated steel frame underneath attached to the headstock. An old tailstock (presumably the original) was fitted but there were no original tool rests or carriage (if it was suppose to have one).

It has a cast brass plaque in the headstock that says it was a "war finish" machine and was made my trainees for victorian technical schools. It had another plaque saing it was the property of the Department of Munitions. There is also a large cast iron plaque showing the South Melbourne Technical School 'coat of arms'/badge.

The old bloke (I can't think of his name off the top of my head) said that it was originally a hole boring lathe, but I don't really know what this is.

I did a bit of research into 'war finish' machines and found that it basically meant that they had been manufactured during the war and as a result they were subject to tight controls on material usage that saw the prohibition of any supurfluous finishes and the substitutuion of valuable materials with cheaper materials.

I found a photo on the AWM site. The photo's caption said:

Melbourne, Vic. 1941-06-04. At South Melbourne Technical College an instructor demonstrates a munitions lathe, parts of which have been made by trainees at the College, to members of the Federal Government. Left to right: Instructor, Mr Eltham, Instructor, Senator Leckie; Mr Holt - Minister for Labour.


So it was a munitions lathe but what munitions would it have been used to make?pattern making perhaps? This leads me to think that it may have originally had a carriage like many other patternmaker's lathes. What are you're thoughts??

Attached Images

	AWN photo.jpg (26.4 KB, 44 views)
	headstock (with plaques) and fabricated base.jpg (246.9 KB, 46 views)
	outboard (has fine thread on spindle and odd bracket).jpg (244.4 KB, 23 views)
	inboard (faceplate probably not original).jpg (243.5 KB, 22 views)
	original bed (cut off).jpg (247.5 KB, 22 views)
	fabricated bed (upside down).jpg (201.4 KB, 21 views)
	tailstock (maybe original).jpg (247.7 KB, 24 views)

Also, It's 3 phase motor, belt driven, but the old style tabs that link together rather than a standard v-belt.

John.

Are you going to restore it and use it yourself?

__________________
regards
Nick (I really don't need a Stubby!)
veni, vidi, tornavi

Yeah that's the plan. Due to the bed already having been amputated I was going to put that aside and just use the headstock with a free standing tripod toolrest. I have a heavy duty cast tripod that came with my other lathe and I rarely use it. It'll be far more ergonomic for bowl turning than my wadkin which is quite low and I'll be able to stand end on to it without a bed.

The paint job is a bit dodgy and I don't think it's original. I'd like to find out the original colour; pale blue/grey judging from the undercoat (from the AWM photo it looks white or light at least).

A variable speed controller is also in the pipeline.

Good luck with the resto. Will make a very good bowl lathe/turning head.

I think this restore is going to be interesting. Will be watching the progress.

That tailstock has a similar design to the Leady lathe, here.

Looks like it was set up to do repetitive short stroke boring to a set depth.

I would hang onto that bed, John. With that you are half way to making your own Stubby style swing-away bed, see photos here.

Does the headstock have plumber blocks or bearings?

Looking forward to see what eventuates.

PS - that would have been Harold Holt in that photo, later to be PM of Australian.

__________________
Neil

"It's only woodturning"... Written first here on this forum by Tim the Timber Turner, but according to him it was originally said by Terry Martin to Theo Haralampou "when he was getting a bit carried away"...

clean up the name plates in the second pic and repost them, somebody may recognise them.

__________________
hughie

Dont worry about life cos' your not gonna get out of it alive!

One of these or this was on ebpay a while back

__________________
As a dad I have not been made redundant!! I have just changed to President & Chariman of the Board. Taken the seat of my father and his father before him. Its lonely at the top till the grandies come over.
http://woolnwood.blogspot.com/

Nice stout headstock. That will make a fine bowl lathe. The tailstock looks to be set up as a second operation lathe. As mentioned above, probably to drill a hole in possibly the base of a shell casing. A stepped tool would be used to drill through and form the pocket for the primer in one operation.

Back then, a row of machines would be set up with an operation done on each, and the part passed to the next.

See: http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/4...ellfactory.jpg

Canadian Bridge Company – 1916 | International Metropolis

__________________
So much timber, so little time.

Paul