Thank you for the image ,its by far the best I've seen so far.I'll save to a memory stick and take to a signwriter to see if he can reproduce the plates.

I live in Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand.I too am approaching retirement having worked at many things but principally motorcycle repairs. I worked for a time in my early 30s at a RENOLDS factory where I learned about english production machinery and the expat englishmen who came here in the"Thatcher era ".They were heavily into Unions and could only do certain types of work they had been trained for i.e Fitter Turner or Fitter Welder .Consequently when the elderly machines stopped or broke down I was called in as a general mechanic to find out how to fix it… I loved it. I went on to be a Maintenance Fitter for a while and bought my first hobby lathe a Boxford Model B c.1953 .Older than me but I've learnt even more off it and its still helping me fix up the STS I bought as a retirement project.Its only date surviving on the machine is in the electrical switch cover 1987.

I've converted it to run off an inverter as my home workshop only has 230v single phase and I didnt want to use another single phase underpowered motor again after finding the shortfalls on the model B.

Its brilliant to see Englishmen still doing things.Both my parents came here as assisted immigrants in 1946 and some of my brothers have been back To visit the places they told us about.