Taking the Mystery out of the Threading Dial

[stevec]

Rick, when was "the golden age of model engineering"? I musta missed it, either that or I forgot.

[Rickabilly]

(09-09-2013, 06:02 PM)stevec Wrote: Rick, when was "the golden age of model engineering"? I musta missed it, either that or I forgot.

Just a reference to a phrase used on another forum, referring to the time when all model engineers used Myfords, Boxfords and South bend lathes, When "real" model engineers refused to buy milling machines because the whole point was the challenge of doing it all on myford with a tee slot cross slide and a vertical slide, or better still a "Gingery" always "with modifications" and as is customary, forged from the sweat of a Northern miners brow.

Sorry if it didn't translate! but the idea is the the golden age itself is a bit of a myth. My personal opinion is that we are living in the beginning of the golden age, where pretty much anyone can afford a lathe to dabble with, due mainly to the Chinese machine tool industry.

Just a bit of a dig at the "Asians can't make machine tools" myth.

Regards Rick

[stevec]

My comments were not intended as critiscism. The only golden age I can relate to are the 30 years with the company that recognised and rewarded my contributions. What could be more golden than that?

[Rickabilly]

I've always had a contempt for the idea of "Golden Ages" by virtue of their definition the idea says the past is better than the present, which is basically saying "wasn't Polio great", or wouldn't it be nice to have a bacterial infection and no antibiotics, or in our trade "isn't it great not being able to take full advantage of modern carbide tools" or "How great is it not being able to buy spare parts for my machine tool"

There used to be a Friday night institution on TV Channel ten in Sydney, near where I grew up, "The Golden years of Hollywood" for years it showed old movies (Which I love) but the facts are simple, the 100 or so movies that were shown on a two year rotation were about 1% or less of the movies made during those "Golden Years" Why? because the rest of the movies were drivel, badly made and of little interest, so... how "Golden" is that?

Please don't think I was offended, I didn't think you were criticizing. I suppose I try and bring balance on the Asian machine tool debate, over the last thirty or so years I've used machines from all over the world, Right now I have a Danish Shaper, Danish... really... I thought pastries were the pinnacle of Danish Mass production...
And some of the nicest, smoothest, easiest to use, most adaptable machines have been Asian, But I also love old English/American/Australian/European reclaimed/restored/re-purposed machines as well, the aesthetic and the connection that you can get with proper spoked cast iron handwheels and the animation of flat belt drives with the tickety,tickety,tickety sound from the belt's staple splices coming around and touching on the pulleys, just the rebuilding process in itself can be a blast.

I feel that we owe it to the newbies to give a fair representation of all of the machines so they can decide which way to go with their early purchases, so that they become oldies one day, I would like the Asian machine tool stigma to give way to an acceptance that sometimes Asian tools often just make sense and often the best choice for a first lathe is Asian.

I hope I'm making sense,

Regards
Rick

[f350ca]

This reminds me of something an old friend of my uncle came up with. Im supposed to be in my golden years but the only thing golden is my pee.

[PixMan]

I do agree with Rick here regarding "golden age" stuff and Asian machines, to a degree.

Let's just be sure we're talking about the quality of a given machine and not just the country of origin. Just as an example there was a time when a Yuasa product was far better than its US Made Palmgren, yet a US made Suburban or Moore tool would have outshined both of those by orders of magnitude. The same applies to machinery. My 1974 vintage Asian (Taiwan) lathe is more robust than many of the American contemporaries of it's time.

[TomG]

I bought my mill in the mid 80's near the end of the Textron/Bridgeport era. By that time the quality of the Bridgeports was so low that I opted for a Taiwanese made DoAll. The quality was much higher than the Bridgeports of the time and it even has hand scraped ways and the storage door on the side, like the Bridgeports used to have before Textron finished with their cost cutting measures.

Tom

[Mayhem]

If any of you begin a thread with "Back in my day...", "In the good old days..." or "When dirt was clean..." I'm out of here

[sasquatch]

well, i remember "When",,,, Lol,,,

Just sayin as posted above by rick that tooling and machines have NEVER been so CHEAP for the homeshop guy.