Had a couple of emails in this past week from a guy call Ton Van Der Slusj in the netherlands, who has been around a Ward No8 machine where he works both as an apprentice 27 years ago and more recently when he found it still in use.
It has a "1947" plate on it, but I don't know if the Ward No 8 Turret lathe was made that long ago. He reckons the slides are still good to a couple of thou over their length (the Model 8 is quite a large machine) and still does its job every day.
That must be one of the oldest production machines I have come across personally, apart from the sorry lot that the guy had when the 'Troubleshooter' series was on with Sir John Harvey-Jones, they were well past their sell-by date!
Apart from personal workpieces, what other oldies are we aware of collectively?
Peter
-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk