I have bought myself a lathe that appears to of been manufactured between april and may 1941. As it is an american manufacturer it was made right about when they were ramping up the lease lend program.
Did the americans send lathes and manufacturing equipment over here as well as weapons etc? What happened to the british companys like myford etc were they closed down or diverted into making other things?
of course there is always the option that an american moved over here and brought it with him however, it would be interesting to find out the history of my lathe
If US machine tools were used in the Spitfire factory, I imagine they would also have been used in other aircraft and mechanical workshops all over the place.
But it must be a possibility that your lathe was used to make Spits.
I doubt that any records exist of serial numbers for each lathe imported, but there is also info here:
others have contacted atlas now clausing and asked for into unfortunately no records have been kept they can only tell you a rough time period from the serial no.
however i wonder if the british army have any records going back that far and if there is any way of accessing them. might be worth a punt.
i have no idea how the lead lease worked if it was all military biased ie through the home office or if a company involved in manufacture in this case could order direct
British factories were importing US made tooling during the war and during the post war years.It’s one of the reasons why we were converting metric technical drawings to imperial machine indexing in the 1970’s.
I can remember a power Cincinnati guillotine we had which could cut up to thin steel plate.Made in USA is second to none.
But doubt if a 1940’s lathe wont be worn out in terms of holding accuracy.
I used to work on Cincinnati vertical and horizontal milling machine tools in my apprenticeship, they were even ancient at that time, must have been wartime era (Boer ) …and were replaced with modern (at that time) profille N.C. milling machines.
Although obviously they were a US co, they used to have a factory in Birmingham making them also in 40s/50s I think.
Factory work just didn’t appeal to me mate.
I kinda knew after first year, and I was going to join up, but was persuaded by parents to stick it out to get qualified.
I did, jacked, and went driving.
Maybe not a great move on reflection.
It’s one of those crossroads in life scenarios, if you turn left your life goes one way after a series of events, each event having another crossroads
If you turn right a whole different series of events, and a whole different life from the first path…different family also.
Nothing to do with lathes but it’s fascinating when you think about it.
I’m getting philosophical in my old age.
Ironically my own and Rob’s start were very similar.My Dad was an engineer and he was adamant that was also going to be my career for life.
I was just as adamant that I would be a truck driver.
Starting with a one sided argument with both the school careers ‘advisor’ and my Dad.In which the advisor said you can’t drive a truck until 21 anyway and he said that he’d never heard of the RTITB young driver training scheme.
Ironically my Dad spent as much time as a driver as he did fixing things during his REME war service and had no interest in driving trucks when he was demobbed.
While his Father had been been a driver starting with horse drawn wagons and transitioning to Foden steam wagons.He died in 1943.My Dad had chosen not to tell me about my Grandfather’s career as a driver for whatever reason and I only found out when rummaging through some family papers after my Dad had died.
Working in a factory for me was crushing confinement and boredom in which every hour seemed like at least two and climbing the walls by lunchtime.
Rob seems to have had the required tolerance of life inside factory walls and days consisting of whatever light comes through the glass roof.
Machining was my relatively favourite part of engineering.Rob will probably also remember the flat surface scraping exercises in which I’d lost the will to live by 11 am let alone 5 pm.
If anybody asked me the time I could tell them without looking at clock…as I hadj just checked it 5 mins ago, and every 5mins after that.
Constantly clock watching.
I worked in factory at day, and was resident DJ at nights (and weekends) at a local holiday camp…so burning candle at both ends…so I was in a constant daze all day, but came alive at night doing something I liked.
What attracted me to driving and tramping was going away with mates in holidays, great nights out at some ‘dubious’ bars and clubs…so I thought to myself…‘This is for me’…
Bad move.
) …and were replaced with modern (at that time) profille N.C. milling machines.
