MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Cathy]

A very old round of Camembert cheese...

[Stanley]

Sorry, both wrong. But Cathy is a touch warmer.....

[StoneRoad]

polishing compound ?

[Big Kev]

Having seen what you've just fitted to the lathe, I'm with Stoneroad

[Stanley]

You're both right, it's a stick of polishing soap for use on the buffing wheel. (So Cathy was getting warm with cheese!)
Next one?

[Stanley]

Can anyone tell me what is happening here?

[Wendyf]

You've sliced your hand off.

[Cathy]

[Gloria]

An old lathe, facing off a copper ring??

[Stanley]

Almost there Gloria, you are right it's an old brass finishing lathe at the Budenberg Gauge Company but have a close look at the set up. What's the actual operation? There is something different about it and that's what I am after.

[Gloria]

Never seen anything like this, but is it burnishing or putting a return edge on? Can't see a cutting tool despite the turnings.

[Stanley]

I think you are close enough Gloria. You have spotted that there is no saddle and only a tool rest for hand tools. In this case it is metal spinning, as you say, putting the shape in the bezel for a pressure gauge by selectively deforming the workpiece as it spins using a dead smooth burnishing tool.
This was the main characteristic of Brass Workers lathes. They were often long beds with multiple headstocks and operator's stations. They each did one operation and passed the part on to their neighbour. Each individual headstock had its own set up and very complicated operations like shaping and thread cutting were done using hand tools. Very cheap and efficient when labour was plentiful but almost all a dead art now. (Note the holes in the top of the tool rest. These were to allow a fulcrum pin to be inserted to allow leverage on the hand tool.)
When I asked John Kirkham at Bolton to make the big drip feed lubricators for the crank pins on the Ellenroad engine he told me that he had no men who were skilled enough to do it and so Newton and I made them using castings supplied by him.
You have kept up your reputation for being chief engineer material!
Next one anyone?

[Gloria]

Should have known spinning......durrrrr.

[Stanley]

Don't be so hard on yourself, all right you forgot the actual name but you used your head and identified the process....Take a Gold Star from the monitor.....

[Stanley]

I found this in the woods at Poynton to the south of Stockport in 1988 and bought it. What is it?

[Bodger]

Horizontal bandsaw ?

[plaques]

Horizontal bandsaw ?

I wood would think a horizontal reciprocating saw. (I could do with one just now)

[Stanley]

Bugger! You are both there but P is the more correct in that it's a reciprocating saw. It was made by Tommy Robinson at Rochdale which was why I bought it because the Wheatsheaf Centre wanted a Rochdale artefact for their new store. It started its life before the Great War sawing coffin boards in Prince's Street in Stockport but then spent the whole of the war producing duck boards for the trenches. It eventually finished up sawing timber in Poynton Woods. I got the Rochdale apprentices to completely refurbish it and I think it eventually ended up in a woodworking Museum when Wheatsheaf changed their decorations later. It was complete and just as it was made over 100 years ago.
Right, next one?

[Stanley]

I haven't got an image for this object so I'll try describing it to you and see whether it rings a bell.
You are in the warehouse of Bibby's food products at Milnthorpe. You notice a large angle iron framed box about two feet square and fifteen feet long laid horizontally on the floor supported on rollers. At one end is a large electric motor driving a gearbox from which comes a connecting rod connected to the box.
Can you guess what it was for?

[Bodger]

Riddling corn ? ?, something for the older readers, Whitehall, one ,two ,one, two, , could ring a bell for someone !

[Stanley]

No Bodge, think Bibby, what did they make and sell?
Whitehall 1212 is engraved on the mind, We heard it regularly on the Home Service in connection with another forgotten corner. I'll give someone else a chance!

[plaques]

Now that is a riddle?

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

[Gloria]

Separating coal??

[chinatyke]

Bibby made animal feed so I assume it was something to do with that. I would have guessed the same as Bodger. If it wasn't for riddling perhaps it was for mixing grains?

[Tizer]

You say the box was two feet square. Do you mean it was square in section? Were the rollers perpendicular to the box long axis? If so I assume it was moving back and forth in a longitudinal direction. Was it for adding and mixing powdered or granular additives into animal feed?