Built in NZ

Well I was visiting a machinery dealer and while looking around I came across this.

The vise is a Record 00 which should give you some idea of scale

OK Ian, any more info or photo's of this machine ?

Very interesting indeed.

Neil

I've added some more photos, it looks like everything was built by a bloke in Timaru, machining and markings are excellent. There is a name on the milling slide.

I'd like to find out a bit more about it myself.

The vice is bolted to the internal block on the pedestal and is threaded, so is rather sold when the clamping bolt is nipped up.

Why is there a T slot cut into the operators side? Any ideas?

I've seen one once, on a pultra 1590, for the threading attachment, on the far side of the lathe

T-Slot for end stops ????

The bed looks very much like a Mikron

MichaelG.

I know this machine's 'brother'. There are five or six in the family. Their history is fascinating and may be published in the future in MEW. The machines are derived from a non-commercially-made-in-NZ 'prototype'. Five sets of castings were obtained by the person whose name appears on the photographed machine in the late 1940s. The patterns were made by his father. These were then made up into complete machines by various people, incorporating various different features. The lathes were not commercially produced. They contain no proprietary parts, apart from ball races in some of the headstocks and, I suppose, some fixings. The T-slot on the front and rear face of the bed was intended for accessory attachment. The whereabouts of all but one of the machines is known and the 'missing' one is thought to survive not too far away. Kiwi ingenuity at its best!

The owner/builder of the lathe I 'know' has prepared an article, with photos, all ready to send to MEW. He tells me that he won't send the article until he's been paid for a previous article published in MEW over a year ago!

I can't reveal any more - let's hope the story will be published. It's just a matter of payment being made...

The owner/builder/author resolutely avoids all contact with computers. It's a real pity, because he posseses enormous theoretical and practical engineering knowledge and has made several superb machine tools and accessories - some in partnership with his late father. If only all that information could be extracted onto a (large) hard drive...

Payments to authors are clearly a private matter and so I can't go into any detail. However, as its been raised, the issue was that the Author hadn't realised that we had made the payment earlier than expected and so couldn't find it on their bank statements. We supplied the date of the payment.

If their is still an issue around this please ask them to get back in touch, but I thought it was all resolved in March.

Neil

I apologise for appearing to accuse MEW of not reliably paying its authors. I was merely passing on what I'd been told, and explaining what was the sticking point. I'll see what I can do to help find the overlooked payment. Hopefully we can then be treated to a fascinating story of engineering precision and ingenuity in what must have been rather difficult circumstances in those days on the other side of the world.