Lathes on Telly

My mission to spot lathes on tv was rewarded last night by a few glimpses of - I think - a Colchester, on Lucy Worsley's Fireworks for a Tudor Queen (BBC4). Not had time to watch the whole programme yet but it looks to be a competent review of Tudor firework manufacture.

Admittedly I'm a Lucy fanboy and she can do no wrong in my book, but it's worth a look. Available on iplayer at the moment and no doubt will be repeated. Contains technical detail and bangs as well as dressing up.

Dave

Yes, it was a good watch and the lathe was put to use turning a set of wooden armatures for the paper cases and creating a small void in the powder charge for gerbs as well as producing a brass dibber for the void in rocket charges.

...but as a woodturner I'd have far preferred to see a wood lathe used for the wooden armature - especially since TCT tipped tools seemed very incongruous being used on wood!

For me, one of the more amazing parts was watching the Korean expert fireworks maker using a mild steel tamper hit with a steel hammer to compress the powder charge into his rockets. The claim was that the humidity made it safe(r) - hmmm.

...I'm seriously tempted to make an overtly political point about Brexit, H&S, de-regulation and nostalgia for Elizabethan (I) England at this point but I'll desist

Jon

I'm also a big fan of the "history pixie" - I learnt a lot about fireworks.

For lathe twitchers there's a Myford S7 and a watchmakers lathe in "The Repair Shop" currently on BBC2 everyday at 18:30 - Interesting, slightly superficial, a bit contrived but there are some useful restoration snippets to be picked up.

Rod

I think I saw one in Netflix's The Crown. Princess Margaret's caddish boyfriend lives in an improbable studio/workshop and I think a lathe was lurking in the background of the workshop upstairs.

The way the lathe was used made me want to know more about it. I'd have thought that making fireworks would involve far more wood turning than metal, and any metal tools needed could be done on a Myford-size. So why have a large expensive precision metal working lathe in the workshop? Either it was a poor choice of lathe or it's needed for something else.

I'm fairly sure that the actual turning was just a demo done for camera. That might explain the inappropriate tooling for wood. Also, they cut a spiral on the dibber by advancing the tool far too quickly, again probably for the camera.

Those Korean steel tools being used to hammer gunpowder were very surprising; an absolutely unnecessary risk. Again I wanted to know more. Perhaps it's traditional, like clinging to Imperial even though Metric is obviously superior.

Dave

PS Whacking imperial measure with a metric hammer is another good way of making fireworks!

That fits. Anyone owning a lathe is clearly never going to be a good husband...

Well I think it was most likely to be a University model-shop lathe.

Lucy W's co-presenter (sorry I missed her name) was probably just taking the path of least resistance to getting the tools made in her own Univ model shop.

On the basis that "what'll turn a lot, will turn a little" it makes sense for the University to have just a decent sized lathe.

Jon

At least he had the good sense to have the workshop in the house BEFORE getting married. A lot easier than trying to get that arrangement afterwards

They’ve been repeating Scrapheap Challenge recently and I noticed one of the team using a rather tidy looking Myford 254s - not exactly the machine you would think to find on a scrap yard!

I was watching last night - wasn't it an ML7? Not that I've seen it used in the programme - not even for "restoring" the Bing traction engine.

You often see lathes in the background of news items of politicians. I wonder how many know what they are.
Also do you remember the program about a team 'restoring' some old item like a car or boat in a single programme. I remember one where the big dummy who was always given the machinery jobs turned a nicely preserved scale covered black iron overhead line-shaft to a smooth shiny finish ....and so thin it was a sloppy fit in the pulley completely ruining it historically forever.