A Manual of the Hand Lathe

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

**LINK**

https://ia801004.us.archive.org/1/items/amanualofthehand48179gut/48179-h/48179-h.htm

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

As always Michael, you frequently surprise me with the material you unearth.

Regards Brian

Edited By Brian Wood on 05/02/2021 09:48:57

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Steam enthusiasts might like the boiler shewn at Fig.36

MichaelG.

[OldironParticipant @oldiron]

As a follow up to MichaelG' post. I have a short cut on the desktop to International tool Catalogue

I spend many an hour in there reading through books and catalogues no longer in print.

regards

Edited By Oldiron on 05/02/2021 11:11:50

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

While Michael's post is both out of copyright and also a good read (so far) the same can't be said for everything on Archive.org

Many items are in the public domain in the US but not in the EU or UK due to differences in copyright laws, but in addition many things found there are definitely copyright worldwide.

The 'Model Engineering, a foundation course' by Wright, Tubal Cain's 'Model Engineer's Handbook' and many of the Workshop Practice books are available for free download.

While everything I have written, both text and software I have explicitly placed in the public domain (and in most cases being free are worth every penny of the price!) this is not the case for authors trying to make a living from their work.

I must admit to sneaking the odd peek online, but beyond that my morals, though embarrassingly elastic in so many other ways, draw the line at copyright theft.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 05/02/2021 13:50:22

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Oldiron on 05/02/2021 11:10:38:

As a follow up to MichaelG' post. I have a short cut on the desktop to International tool Catalogue

I spend many an hour in there reading through books and catalogues no longer in print.

regards

Edited By Oldiron on 05/02/2021 11:11:50

There is a Reeves catalogue from 1954 in there!

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

MichaelG – a PM for you

Nick

[David NobleParticipant @davidnoble71990]

I'm still struggling with Fig: 44. I've no idea how that was done! Very clever.

David

[MortyParticipant @morty]

Hi all!

Re: Nick Clark 3's observation:-

Reeves catalogue:-

https://archive.org/details/aj-reeves-and-co-1954-catalogue/page/4/mode/2up

Look at the price for a new Myford!!

Many thanks for the links! Pete

Edited By Morty on 05/02/2021 23:27:29

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

The Myford on page 4 is a woodworking lathe. The earliest prices I have are 1956. ML7 £51 17 6 + motor

By 1960 the price was £63 12 6 Chucks etc were an extra.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Posted by David Noble on 05/02/2021 21:58:03:

I'm still struggling with Fig: 44. I've no idea how that was done! Very clever.

David

Have a look into Ornamental Turning and be prepared to me amazed at the technology available so long ago
http://www.the-sot.com/

This is just an example, I'm sure there are many other videos.

Bill

[MortyParticipant @morty]

Hi KWIL,

Sorry, the link I posted jumped in at page 4, page 1,2,&3 have adverts for the ML7 AND Super 7.

Cheers, Pete

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

If I had two of these, would one of them be a second hand lathe?

Tim

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Really, the more I see or read of what our forefathers did with what to us look much cruder tools than they were, the more I have to respect them.

I believe the screw-cutting lathes referred to, with some form of lead-screw at the back, are called Chasing Lathes. I am not sure if they were change-geared or used a set lead-screw for each pitch.

Holtzappfel also describes in one of his books a device for cutting short lengths of thread, based on something akin to a cross-slide taper-turning attachment.

'

May your threads never be drunken, may your boilers always please your Club Admirer of Pressure-Vessels, your Ornamental Turning always please your lady-friends / other-half…

…. and may you note that whilst using coins as material in 19C America may have been legal, it is not so in the UK.

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

Chasing lathes: One method of producing threads in the early days of ME was called Chasing. It required a lathe with a long tool rest parallel with the rotating work, like a wood lathe, and a tool with a cutter rather like an insert for a Coventry Die Head Chaser, but fixed in a long wooden handle. Yes, the same word, still in use.

The clever bit was that there were no gears, no fancy drive system to produce the thread mechanically. Clever because the operator was required to move the chaser along the work so that at each revolution the tool moved along – by hand – one pitch exactly, for the full length of the required thread. Not a easy task, but like many of the early manual trades, the 'knack' could be acquired by long practice.

I do not know whether this was the purpose of the 'chasing lathes' described above – perhaps Holtzapfel and his kin made a lathe which required less skill as it was geared?

Other trades were mechanised in the same process – engraving, for example, is still done by hand for top-of-the-range presentations, but by machine for the local football club. Other skills died out, or will very shortly, such as thatching. This used to be a skill for many farm labourers, thatching hay stacks in every farm yard, now limited to up-market houses with Porsches on the drive.

Cheers, Tim

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I wonder if you have misjudged Mr. Holtzappfel there.

The latter half of the 19C saw the development of standard pitches, and any adroit machine-tool manufacturer would have been right to design that ability into his lathes. Whilst most of the ornamental-lathe buyers may have been amateurs, the more far-sighted industrial customer wanted the latest advances in modern production techniques.

Also, without digging though the tomes, I don't recall Holtzappfel describing his company's products specifically, but techniques common in metal-working trades at the time. Anyway, he described a cross-slide thread-profiler, still not guaranteed to cut a standard pitch unless used with a multi-point chaser, and then on only very short lengths like the ends of clock movement columns.

Why might thatching die out shortly? It seems to be one those old trades that came close to it but found new leases of life, albeit serving the Canary Wharf second-home set rather than local farm-workers.

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

The problem I identify with trades that move up market, is complex. Thatching is currently a trendy sort of roof covering, and such things tend to be subject to fashion. They can, in other words, become 'old hat' just as brown furniture has in the past few years. This discourages new blood. At the same time, the money people feel able to spend on renewing their not-so-posh roof is much less, which discourages farmers from growing the special straw which is needed for a really first class job. And sooner or later, the apparent benefits of an engineered surface, without all the snags with birds, damp, etc, and a government grant to 'help save the planet' mean the old roof is replaced completely. Need I go on?

Not all trades are affected in the same way, or to the same extent. Thatching is still only part way through the process, as is blacksmithing (ie without using gas or electric welding). Proper driving, of car or motor bicycle, is next.

But perhaps not. Just think, though, what must change to stop this all happening?

Cheers, Tim

[GeorgineerParticipant @georgineer]

Thanks for putting this up, Michael. It adds nicely to my recent thread about turning by hand, especially the section on thread cutting.

George B.

[Robert DoddsParticipant @robertdodds43397]

Michael,

A very interesting book to browse in . Thank you for bringing it to the forum.

Tim,
On the question of thread chasing, I was employed in the early sixties by a well known manufacturer of "gentlemen's toilets". Their "brass shop" produced lengths of threaded copper pipe which were assembled to cast brass Tees or Crosses to form the down pipe for said toilet, all being screwed and soldered together before either polishing or chrome plating.
The pipe threading was entirely done with hand chasers usually with a mandrel up the pipe to provide support and all to 26 TPI. Once started the multiple threads on the chaser ensured that the pitch of the thread on pipe was correct
One of my projects of the day was to introduce brass stamped Tees and Crosses with silver soldered joints replacing the screwed and soldered version.

Happy days,
Bob D

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Tim –

I see what you mean. I'd not really thought of a thatched roof as a "fashion" item.

Robert –

Now there's a profession to state when a Mastermind competitor – Khasi Designer.

I spent yesterday machine-threading a 26TPI thread on both ends of a steel tube, having reduced the OD to the specified 3/4" dia – the drawing warns in thick black type that the wall is barely 0.02" thick at the thread root. This might have been a little less fraught if the tube supplied was not a length of ordinary galvanised conduit that had somehow to be centred in a 4-jaw chuck and run reliably in a fixed steady…

One end is reasonable but other a bit torn because irregularities caused it to bounce slightly in the steady.

I'd already made the mating knurled fittings, to use as gauges.

I did have a Plan B if I'd failed – the design is such that it would be possible to cut the tube short and insert long plugs to carry the threads.

[Author]

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