HSS
19th February 2012, 04:37 PM
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:
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif][if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif][if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif][if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> 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??
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:
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif][if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif][if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif][if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> 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??