Gasoline powered lathe

One of my neighbours has such an installation. It's been there since about 1906, when the houses were built. It's a fairly suburban part of Bristol, UK and a row of stone-built Victorian terraces.

This one was deliberately constructed with a small workshop behind, which operated as a commercial engineering workshop for the first half of the century. Power was supplied by a 9hp Crossley (AFAIR) gas engine, powered by piped town gas. This is a large slow-running single horizontal cylinder engine with a cast flywheel about 6' diameter. It then powers a lineshaft in the roof space, which in turn drives a number of large machine tools: a couple of lathes, a drill press and at one time a milling machine.

The workshop saw service in both world wars, first turning to armaments (I've seen the ledger listing fuze production) and later supporting the local aircraft factories.

In recent years it's no longer commercial and the original tools have been supplemented by electrically powered ones. It's still used though, a recent owner was a builder of '30s-inspired touring cars, built on a monumental scale with truck chassis parts and a Commer TS3 engine.

Maybe a truck engine with a tranny mounted power take-off, which are usually geared for around 400 rpm. A hydraulic PTO might work too, which are usually mounted on the front bumper of vocational trucks.

Tony