lathe identity?

[speedy]

I was digging amongst my photo box ( yeah I know they should be in albums ) and came across this lathe. I can`t recall where it was shot but possibly at the Wagener Museum in Northland NZ. I`m sure you can help.
Cheers big ears,
Ken NZ
It is a bit hard to identify without the photo so here it is.


[This message has been edited by speedy (edited 08-18-2004).]

[J Tiers]

How about Drummond?

[franco]

Speedy,

I agree with J Tiers - almost certainly a 7" swing Drummond with 30" bed. C L Deith in his book "Early Lathes and Machine Tools of Interest" showa a reproduction of a Drummond Brothers ad., (no date unfortunately), for an identical lathe on an identical stand being used to bore a 3" diameter 2 1/2 HP DeDion engine cylinder using a boring bar between centres.

Quote from the ad: "Lathe is perfectly made, highly finished, perfectly accurate and carries our guarantee, and is sent on approval for ten days trial.
Price thirteen pounds ten shillings complete with treadle, or as Bench Lathe, ten pounds ten shillings.
Less 5% cash discount, or in twelve monthly payments"

Wish you could get something similar for the same price now!

Regards, franco.

[J Tiers]

Well, wasn't a pound about $5 then? And the inflation rate is something like 20x from then, so the 10 pounds would have been 20 x $50 or around $1000 at least in today's money.

If you figure inflation in my favorite units, bread loaves, the rate may be higher, 5 cents vs $2.

[speedy]

Thanks JTiers and Franco, I checked out lathes. co.uk after reading your response and you both win first prize, congratulations: don`t squable . Seriously though that is a very nice machine; the English site is very informative. Thanks for the info;
Chears bigears.---

Ken N.Z

[This message has been edited by speedy (edited 08-20-2004).]

[franco]

J Tiers,

Fair comment re inflation. However, even using your bread-index of 40:1, the price of that Drummond's modern descendant, the Myford long bed Super 7 is still way over the indexed price of the Drummond, though, of course, you get more features for the money. I can't find a current $US price for the Myford on the net, but someone quoted it recently on one of the forums (can't find that either). I did see the Australian price recently, and it would buy several new geared head Chinese 12 X 36 lathes.

Regards, franco.

[wierdscience]

Shucks,I figured it was one of those "Hobgoblin&Emhardt-North Dunchurch Miles and
Nottingham centre lathes"

Drumond,must be Scotish,not nearly enough name to be English and less than 100 characters long so it can't be German

[John Stevenson]

Sorry Weird, Drummond was English and came from Guildford in Surry.
They made some very good lathes right up until the second world war.
At the outbreak of the war they were told to hand over all small lathe production to Myfords and concentrate on war work and the biger lathes and machine tools which went under the Maxicut name.
They finished in about 1984 after being taken over a few times.
Here's a couple of shot from their works just post WWI



Is a shot of the Capstan shop, and the following is a shot of the drilling shop.



Every British warship that put to sea up to WWII was equipped with a 3.5" drummond lathe, what you would call a 7" lathe.

------------------
John S.
Nottingham, England

[wierdscience]

Ya,I know,just kidding on the name thing.I have actually seen two in years past,both were owned by a man who made smoking pipes,he used them to turn the more exotic hardwoods like Ebony.
I never did notice what they used for bearings,was it bronze split shells?