Lathe Identity

Kevin,

Most likely the lathe was once owned by Hilger & Watts, a scientific instrument making company, and they would have put a label on it when they got the lathe new. This type of instrument lathe would typically be used in the fitting shop. Hilger & Watts at it's peak in the late 1960's had factories in London, (mainly Camberwell, Camden Town, Highbury and Debden in Essex). In the Highbury fitting shop they had 3 Smart & Brown instrument lathes. However, there would have been quite a lot of this type of lathe in the company, and I can never remember them scrapping machines. When the crunch came after they were taken over by Rank Precision Industries most /all of the London factories in 1973'ish were relocated to a smaller factory in Margate, and I suppose a lot of the older machines were sold off so most likely that's how your machine made it to the open market. So it has a bit of history to it and maybe if you can get a better look at the label it may even say which factory it was!

Happy bidding

Mike

It's obviously not made by Hilger & Watts (unless someone knows differently). I'm guessing their name is on the plate as the supplier. If they supplied it I thought it should be a pretty good instrument makers lathe -can anyone comment. i thought it might be worth a bid (a UK £ ia about 2.7 NZ$ by the way).

Regards Kevin

It's very similar to the plain instrument makers lathes made by Lorch from around the 50s/60s (see e.g.

maker's name is usually stamped on the cross slide and back of the headstock in very small type.

It would certainly have had a set of collets and drawbar which don't seem to be shown in any of the photos. If there isn't a set with it then you might want to factor the cost of such a set in when considering your bid.

Alan

Interesting

looks even more similar.

Russell