Lathes as bling!

Shame to see such a fine lathe in such a terrible condition. It could be saved but not without a huge amount of work. I'm nearly completed with a full rebuild of the exact same model. Bed grind, apron rebuild, new motor, new electrics, new spindle bearings all the sliding parts scraped.

I thought SOD was including that, along with the Boxer Rebellion and other imperial adventures. Sometimes I think we're lucky their revenge so far amounts to outselling our lethargic engineering manufacturers...

My Francis Barnett hardly moved at all!

If it's being used, who cares what it looks like. It's a tool, not jewellery

I agree with the sentiment but that machine isn't in use. All of the handwheels are red with rust.

I was always taught that a skilled person always looks after their tools, there is absolutely no excuse for a machine to be left in that condition if it is being used or not.

Perhaps the owners are getting on with their real business?

I have tools that haven't been used in years, and their cosmetic appearance shows that. But it doesn't affect their utility.

Indubitably they are doing something else but the damage on that lathe is not cosmetic.

As it sits, it's not a working machine. That machine's been brought in from being left outside and disregarded.

Rail preservation guys should know better. My dad ran a rail preservation workshop and the sight of that would have made him very sad knowing how difficult it was to get quality machines especially smaller ones like the HLV.

I don't understand how a Hardinge lathe ended up in a railway workshop. These were bought by the likes of the Atomic Energy Research Centre and used in clean tool rooms.

JA

It's a heritage railway workshop so possibly a donation from one of the myriad closing down clean tool rooms, or auction item from the same. Or thrown out the back door of a still functioning tool room as obsolete or worn out. It's an old piece of industrial machinery, just like millions of other pieces of old industrial machinery that have been melted down for scrap. (Including most of the steam trains ever made.)

Edited By Hopper on 19/01/2020 12:39:54

Not necessarily. I've seen machines sit for years in neglected condition in a railway shop, then be put back in service with any necessary (as distinct from cosmetic) restoration when a job comes up requiring them. Heritage railways have limits on their resource like anybody else. Volunteers can do quite a bit, but skilled labour working to deadlines comes at a price. This horizontal borer sat outside until a quartering job arose that could use it as a gauging fixture:

This was certainly the case in the past, Dave, but presently it's not. The current Tsai Ing-wen administration makes no claims of sovereignty over the mainland and regards Taiwan as independent of China, whilst seeing no need to make a formal declaration of that independence, which of course it knows would infuriate China even more than it already is infuriated by Taiwan's reluctance (amply demonstrated at the recent presidential election) to be annexed by the PRC.

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 18/01/2020:

"The part played by the West in Chinese History is not taught in British schools."

Largely speaking this is sadly true. I must admit I wasn't totally up to speed myself when I did my first solo tour of the Summer Palace many years ago.

What is also sadly true is that the part played by the Chinese in Chinese history is often not taught in Chinese schools. I've studied the Chinese high-school history syllabus myself (informally), and it's nothing short of astonishing the degree to which pivotal parts of 20th century Chinese history simply don't get a mention or are mentioned in the most euphemistic terms. For example, the 36 million deaths during the Great Leap Forward - not a mention in my Gaokao-level textbook, just some unjust reference to how the people (not Mao!) were too eager to achieve success and ignored objective economic laws, and how China's economy suffered setbacks as a consequence. Tens of millions dying is an economic setback, apparently, nothing more.

There is no parallel to such an erasure of history in secondary-school history textbooks used today in British schools and you're absolutely right to say that what Chinese students are taught in history classes is a worry.

You've made a very good assessment of things, Dave, particularly in your closing remarks; if only more Western politicians had such an informed and balanced view!