Does This Lathe Still Exist?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I came across this by a rather roundabout route:

https://news.ycombinator.com/news

A site new to me and apparently with a heavily technical bias, unlike ordinary news services.

Look up Item No. 85, which is cribbed from lathes.co in turn from The Engineer trade-magazine and also citing an 1980s ME edition.

This small but very well equipped lathe was built by a Royal Artillery officer as a POW in circumstances apparently a bit better than in most WW2 Japanese camps. The improvised workshop made among things, artificial limbs presumably (not stated) for wounded Japanese servicemen, which by reading between the lines, probably ensured its survival and slightly better treatment of its operators.

Does anyone know if the machine still exists, and was its maker, R. Bradley, a relative of Ian Bradley?

[Nigel Graham 2]

On 30 April 2024 at 11:46 Nigel Graham 2 Said:

I came across this by a rather roundabout route:

https://news.ycombinator.com/news

A site new to me and apparently with a heavily technical bias, unlike ordinary news services.

Look up Item No. 85, which is cribbed from lathes.co in turn from The Engineer trade-magazine and also citing an 1980s ME edition.

[…]

Could you please check that link, Nigel ?

I tried it, and it led me to Hacker News … Item 85 being nothing to do with lathes

MichaelG.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Just google “WW2 POW lathe” and several links come up, including photos.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Michael –

Just looked, and oh, so it isn’t. It was. It’s disappeared from Hacker News. Article 85 is now about an aeroplane… Well it was five minutes ago!

Luckily the lathes.co entry exists!

Lathes section, manufacturer index link: “R.Bradley WW2”.

It opens a copy of the original The Engineer article.

..

This ends with an intriguing footnote I had previously misinterpreted.

It cites an article in Model Engineer Vol.150 p537 et.seq. (1983), but it was not about the Bradley lathe. Instead describes making a similarly-sized lathe, about 2-5/8″ centre-height, from drawings published by the “Power Model Supply Co.” You need a larger lathe to make it, the author points out!

Spellings etc. suggest The Engineer is or was an American Publication. The PMS was certainly American, a firm rather like, say, Blackgates or Stuart Models; but it ended tragically when a fire and explosion killed its proprietor, Fred Ellis, and destroyed the premises and contents. That seems to have been in the early-2000s. Subsequently some of the surviving castings and patterns have appeared on e-Bay.

[Source: International Brotherhood of Live Steamers]

…..

Next question….

Does Bradley’s lathe still exist and if so, where?

 

 

 

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Hacker news seems to be a bit of a moveable feast.  When I first looked at the link, it was at no. 86, not 85; just looked again and it’s moved up to no. 75!  Maybe the more hits it gets shifts it up the list.

John

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

…… and now it’s up to no. 72!

John

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

But if you google it you get a link to the content regardless of number. However don’t bother as it is not about the lathe just waffle about the prison segregation of officers and enlisted.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Very strange !

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MichaelG.

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Looks like a web-page upon which one could while-away a lifetime

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Don’t bother with Hacker for this one!

That happens to be how I was referred to it, by someone else, before I found it on Tony Griffiths’ site.

Go straight to lathes.co.uk – Hacker’s admitted source. And there it is an acknowledged quote from a trade publication – and with a page signalled as missing.

Oh – and please read the article properly. There is a good description of the lathe but it also contains more engineering material than that, and its context is at least as important as the machine.  Far more than mere “waffle” as Bazyle so dismisses it – a statement that does no justice to the POWs concerned, either.

[JAParticipant @ja]

Engineering magazine is a British publication and has been in print for well over 150 years. It is very serious with, in 1949, interesting articles such as one on turbine aerodynamics. It has archives, recent magazines appear to be free (perhaps for a one off visit to their web site). Graces Guide, http://www.gracesguide.co.uk, also has digital copies going back for a very long time. They make a small charge for access.

I found the article very interesting. In addition, ME’s archives could have details from the industrial show mentioned (August & September 1948). Go on, have a search!

JA

I note that R. Bradley was a A.M.I.C.E. Possibly the Institute would know something about him.

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