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A summary of the evolvement of the Engine-Lathe in the USA part 1 of 2

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While the astronauts were landing on the moon, I was there. At NASA. In a machine shop with my business partner talking with an engine-lathe machinist running now considered an antique machine. Just a walk from Mission Control.

My attempt at cordiality, George

I thought you were going to say, on the moon.
 
Has it occurred to anyone else in this discussion that all of the wood-bed lathes shown are huge? Where are the small ones? The presumption is that they pre-date the iron bed lathes but I have serious reservations about that. It may be that they are contemporaneous with iron-bed chain lathes, that the decisive factor is size and that the limiting factor on size was the state of foundry technology in America. It would be pointless to intimate that American foundry practice was more advanced than that of Britain... it simply wasn't.

I would posit that, in the American context, the wood bed lathes aren't earlier, but that the difficulty of making the necessary large castings, and of finishing them and transporting them, dictated the use of wood, where even at the time, it would have been common knowledge that iron was a better material.

I also have an early lathe. I thought I had photos of it but can't find them so I will try to take some later today but it has an iron bed, the castings for which were originally for a chain lathe. These were modified, I strongly suspect by the original builder, to include a lead screw, a feed rod and a reasonably conventional apron. I also know where its near identical twin is, albeit still a chain lathe (I really should make an effort to buy it). I would date it around 1840 although like all of these items, that is pure conjecture.

The largest American castings I'm familiar with, from this period, are cannon. Cannon founding is a very specialized form of foundry work and is relatively well documented. We know that Americans had a difficult time with it but that, as it was a matter of "national security," they persevered. This was partly because the government wanted guns cast here and were prepared to pay for them. The promise of a guaranteed sale is a great incentive to manufacturing and not one that is applicable to most commercial products — like lathes, unless they are being sold to the government.

There has been a great deal of reference in this thread to David Wilkinson's "general purpose lathe" — a machine for which we have no reliable information or description. I do have a period description of the use of the lathe at the Springfield armory, to rough turn musket barrels, but these were made of wrought iron which, as anyone who has worked with it will testify, does not turn very well. The barrels were forged (with water powered trip hammers), rough turned and then ground. It was the grinding that gave them their smooth finish and this was done with huge sandstone wheels, also water powered and probably using jigs of some sort to impart the proper taper. They were then polished by spinning them against leather pads impregnated with pumice. The result was a very smooth, polished barrel. Nevertheless, before the introduction of the lathe to this process, barrels were successfully made by going directly from the forging process to grinding. This is how octagonal barrels were made. I'd suggest that Wilkinson's lathe, for which the government awarded him a prize, may have been a fairly rough machine and that its major contribution was that it drastically reduced the time, and thus cost, involved in barrel production.
 
cncFireman, you continue to amaze me..

You have brought out so much never before known.. or at least, not considered.

Your wood-bed posts are imo a giant historical breakthrough..

It looks like we are on the very edge of putting all this together.. I hope we can finish this MAJOR machine-tool engine-lathe historical breakthrough before the thread gets shut down.

Geo

View attachment 161121

George,
This information might be new and amazing to you but many other people already knew what is being posted here. There are no giant historical breakthroughs here at all. You should also realize that the history of lathes will never be finished and it will not fit a neat ABC order, small details will always pop up when you least expect it. Also lots of information and many lathes have been lost forever so we can never know the whole story.
 
On the use of both a rack and screw, LTC Rolt in Tools for the Job written in the UK 1965, on page 109 he says of Fox's lathes; "The most significant of these (Improvements over Maudslay)was the use of both a rack and lead-screw traverses for the slide rest, his object being to use the rack feed for plain turning and so preserve the precision of the lead screw for screw cutting", this continues on page 111 (An illustration being on page 110) stating that the rack was fixed with a worm traveling against it, and not the other way around, this worm being selectably engaged or disengaged as needed by the operator.

By comparison the moving rack seems straightforwardly backwards to me.
No date is ascribed to this but it does imply that he was neck and neck with Maudslay.
 
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I thought I'd just extend, to an elderly ex-NASA 'Moon-shot' man, the same unconditional respect that I'd give to a US WWII veteran.



Bill

Dear Bill, with much appreciation for your noble gesture, I am very sorry to have to correct you..

My Partner deserves all the credit for that achievement. I didn't contribute an iota to that project. He gets 100% credit for that achievement.

He was a giant of a man, ~6' 5, and absolutely one of the most gentle, kind, and considerate persons that I have ever had the fortune to have known. He possessed 6 PHDs, yet he never flaunted his capability.

Yet most sadly, he was treated despicably in his OWN office by the female secretarial staff. Women who that in an emergency could not have found the correct wrench for a nut on a bolt.

They misconstrued his humbleness for being a lack of power. Once disrespect was allowed to remain in his office, the staff of about 6 picked up on it, and made a game out of his reluctance to retaliate for misconduct.

THAT was one of the saddest chapters in my life.. having to suffer watching him taking such outrageously unjust treatment, and my not having an option to do anything to correct it.

Thank you, George
 
I am very sorry to have to correct you..

I see: So I guess we were both the full 1/4 million miles away from the action that day. Never mind, the offer still stands.

Your partner sounds like a great guy, Another loss to mankind :-(

You must be, what?, into your 80's now? I hope you're taking care of yourself - avoid stress would be my advice :)

Liquidating your son's business can't have been easy and starting another one too ... Don't make a stranger out of your Doctor. I've seen, at close quarters, what heart disease and strokes can do - avoid at all cost!
 
1820s Bliss-Balwin and the moving rack

How many besides me get excited over discoveries about machine tools ?

I've went back to the Smithsonian site and got some super high-definition images of this lathe.

Starting with the link supplied by cvcFireman in post # 24,

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v....si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_880296

should take you to the page with 2 thumbnails. Top is the front, bottom thumbnail is the rear of the machine.

After you open the page, it may look like an error message, but just click on the lower right bottom corner where it says enlarge image. This will bring up an image that can be magnified to about nose distance. The only thing I could think of better than these images, would be to actually be there under good light and with a mirror.

I'm including 4 images, A. Front view, B. Rear view, C. Description and D. The Nash lathe from 1817 for comparison.

Besides having such beautiful pictures, the exciting thing to me - is the discovery of a moving rack, connected to the cross-slide and extending out the Rear.. It shows the teeth clearly down, and supported at the rear by the pinion. The front end of the rack is connected to the cross-slide by what appears to be keys, and I think this is close to the idea Heavy Metal had in post # 82.

There is so much to discuss about this lathe, one of the most beautiful examples I've seen, but I'll wait awhile for some of you commenters.

All the best, George

Bliss-Baldwin Lathe 1820s.jpg

Rear view Bliss and Baldwin.jpgBliss Baldwin Lathe descrtiption.jpg

cncFireman musket barrel lathe.jpg
 
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Those are superb images of a beautifully designed and made lathe :)

The bed looks like a single casting (basically two deep side plates with stretchers forming a box) it is mounted on a wooden frame with iron accessories. The head-stock has two separate bearing brackets bolted to the bed with bronze spindle bearings.

In design, it is likely a precursor to the Putnum shown earlier in the thread. It is a weighted lathe (the weight appears to be missing in the photos) . The hanging weight would provide a preload force to the cross-slide, and thus the carriage, to prevent the cutting forces lifting the slides from their guide-ways*. Other bed shapes, such as the later Prismatic and dovetail (and earlier triangular), are designed so that the cutting forces are constrained by the slide-way* itself .

It is obviously meant to be a precision lathe, so building the carriage hand-wheel on the right side, may be to give a right handed operator better manual control of the carriage traverse. The feed mechanism is very well designed and seems to have added little or no extra complication, when compared to the other left hand drive machines.

I would say the lathes like this and the Putnum example probably represent the pinnacle of weighted lathe design in terms of accuracy or precision.

One intriguing thing, is the bull-gear, which appears to be contemporary: clearly it is not a back-gear, so may have been included to add some spindle-synchronous operation, like screw-threading.

Bill





* I am differentiating these because, while a slide-way has the possibility for low pressure/speed hydrodynamic lubrication, the guide-way's contact area are really too small .
 
What is the nature of this dead horse that you continue to beat?

Yet another case of a design that did not succeed because it was not an improvement.

Hi Mark,

Give the old-boy a break let him tell his story. I know he's had a few pot-shots at us, but as they say, 'never wave at a wide' ;-)

Yes ultimately, the weighted lathe was a dead end , but for several decades it was the 'American' lathe . I find them fascinating and often ingenious.

Bill
 
How many besides me get excited over discoveries about machine tools ?

Why are you treating this as a discovery? It's in the Smithsonian- anyone who is seriously interested in early lathes probably already knew of its existence. Don't be disappointed if everyone else's level of enthusiasm doesn't match your own.

Andy
 
Those are superb images of a beautifully designed and made lathe :)

The bed looks like a single casting (basically two deep side plates with stretchers forming a box) it is mounted on a wooden frame with iron accessories. The head-stock has two separate bearing brackets bolted to the bed with bronze spindle bearings.

In design, it is likely a precursor to the Putnum shown earlier in the thread. It is a weighted lathe (the weight appears to be missing in the photos) . The hanging weight would provide a preload force to the cross-slide, and thus the carriage, to prevent the cutting forces lifting the slides from their guide-ways*. Other bed shapes, such as the later Prismatic and dovetail (and earlier triangular), are designed so that the cutting forces are constrained by the slide-way* itself .

It is obviously meant to be a precision lathe, so building the carriage hand-wheel on the right side, may be to give a right handed operator better manual control of the carriage traverse. The feed mechanism is very well designed and seems to have added little or no extra complication, when compared to the other left hand drive machines.

I would say the lathes like this and the Putnum example probably represent the pinnacle of weighted lathe design in terms of accuracy or precision.

One intriguing thing, is the bull-gear, which appears to be contemporary: clearly it is not a back-gear, so may have been included to add some spindle-synchronous operation, like screw-threading.

Bill


* I am differentiating these because, while a slide-way has the possibility for low pressure/speed hydrodynamic lubrication, the guide-way's contact area are really too small .

Bill, many many thanks for a prompt positive treatment.

Impressive for the time you had to examine this machine.

Your input has a very high value in my book.

Most appreciative, George
 
Why are you treating this as a discovery? It's in the Smithsonian- anyone who is seriously interested in early lathes probably already knew of its existence. Don't be disappointed if everyone else's level of enthusiasm doesn't match your own.

Andy

When I look up at the logo at the top of the page, I seem to interpret it as the PRACTICAL MACHINIST FORUM..

Pretty sure the sign does not say " teachers wanted to teach PRACTICAL MACHINISTS - no experience necessary !

Some one needs to take this boy out to a real machine shop for a few days. Things will get much clearer to him then..

otoh if his motivation is to be a professional troll, then nothing will change
 
Some one needs to take this boy out to a real machine shop for a few days. Things will get much clearer to him then..

Whow George! Andy was just pointing out the simple truth.

if you want to tell your story, if you want to give exposure to the early American lathe pioneers , if you want to let the youth know their past,...

stop firing spitballs!

Greg will close this thread just as he did the others!

Please, apologise to Andy. Then you can get to tell us your ideas . Ok?

Bill
 
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