The Herbert Lubricar

For much of this year I have had a friend helping me for a few days a week and it has been a very useful arrangement for both of us (his business has been badly affected by covid 19) and I have had various projects that I doubt I could have managed on my own.

Not having spent too much time in a workshop like mine, he seems to have taken much of it in his stride, with the exception of the chronic lack of space (and I suspect the equally chronic amount of chaos).

When I had to collect a couple of machines that I had in storage, he expressed doubt that they would fit into the workshop (obviously there was tons of room).

Whilst moving the Herbert No1 into its temporary home, we started talking about these lathes and how they would have been used. As we both live in Nottingham, I had said that Raleigh would have had quite a number of capstans running and that I had recalled seeing a photo of a cart for oiling them. I then suggested that I could get one and that as penance for doubting the capacity of the workshop, he could push it around.

I tracked the photo down in a manual and here it is.

I suspect that Herbert probably didn't make too many of these and that pretty much all of them have now been scrapped.

Has anyone ever seen one of these?

Has one been preserved?

If not, does it matter?

Anyway fast forward a few weeks and with Christmas approaching I decided to take my first serious foray into model engineering.

After hours of studying the photo I managed to produce this accurate scale model of said Lubricar

Hopefully he will now be able to lubricate himself over the festive period.

Regards.

David.

Edited By David Colwill on 26/12/2020 12:11:35

Now that,s something worth making ! [and stocking ]

The next model could have a lubrication fluid tank, a hand pump and a plastic delivery pipe

A business diversification opportunity!

Ha Ha. I wondered where the hand pump was. Plus the tube, so you do not have to leave the chair.

Steve.

I believe that Saturday Night and Sunday Morning has some scenes from the Raleigh factory; a viewing might reveal the Lubricar.

It should have a commode on the end to be a true replica.

As a Herbert Apprentice I well remember these oil carts, it was a punishment of the first order to get one from 'Works Engineering' department and have it filled then push it the best part of 1/4 mile down the shop to the Milling section, then go around all the machines to top them up / do an oil change. You finished up with oil everywhere, and smelling like a sulpher miner to boot. Then push it back up the shop with all the other sections shouting out "Mines a 99 cone please mate'.

I think yours David would have been far better appreciated!

I don't know why but somehow the outlines made me think ecclesiastical!

Nottingham and Raleigh, eh? My ancestral city though I am actually a Hampshire-native Dorset resident. There was an old belief that the one who would have been my great or great-great Grandad helped Raleigh set up his business, but we now know we were mistaken.

His family name was Kay, he set up a cycle manufactory in Nottingham under his own name, and though that has long gone I believe there are a few preserved Kay cycles about.

'

Ega -

As I recall the factory scene is almost at the start. I don't remember it showing much of the machine-shop though, just the leading character filmed from behind a capstan-lathe, making one tote-bin of cycle-cranks after another.

'

I've just looked back at the original photo, and see it's not in a general Herbert catalogue but actually the manual for the Herbert 2D capstan-lathe. Presumably the technical author assumed the chap in the photo was looking after a huge machine-shop full of Herbert 2D capstans. I wonder the date - he's wearing a boiler-suit and unless he's wearing a close-fitting cap, his clothes and hair suggest early-1960s.

Yes, the opening scene is the one I had in mind but having watched a clip of this on YouTube I couldn't see anything resembling the Lubricar. Other YT material suggests that Raleigh employees were a happy and loyal workforce but the Albert Finney character is anything but.

He was performing an operation on bottom bracket spindles I think and had to process 1400 a day.