Unknown Lathe

[PeterLathe]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help me.

I have acquired a 6mm Watchmaker's Lathe and I am trying to work out what collet thread it uses.  Unfortunately I have no idea what make of lathe it is; I have visited Lathes.co.uk and sent Tony some photos but even he has no idea who made it. It has an existing Neill and Co. collet but even with a pitch gauge I can't seem to find a match. I have enclosed photos of the lathe and collet in the hope that someone may recognise it.

Many thanks for your help.

Peter

[watchweasol]

Hi  Ithink this one is for JD as a collector of lathes he may have some pointers. I have three lathes  a 6.5mm,    8mm  and an old 4jaw idependent . could have been build 30s 40s. 

[JohnR725]

a unhelpful answer is it doesn't look right for a watchmaker's lathe? then a link to an interesting book.  is all sorts of interesting technical specifications including a nice chart on lathe collets sizes you might find that helpful

https://archive.org/details/watchmakerslathe00good/mode/2up

[PeterLathe]

If it isn't a watchmaker's lathe what do you think it was designed for. Thanks for the link I will have a look.

[PeterLathe]

Tony from Lathes.com thought around 1920-1939. 

[JohnR725]

19 minutes ago, PeterLathe said:

If it isn't a watchmaker's lathe what do you think it was designed for

zero proof zero anything I just have this weird feeling it does not look right for a watchmaker's lathe.

probably misleading is that we don't have all the original accessories possibly. Like for instance the slide rest the little knobs that wasn't normally what watchmakers lathes had. Typical watchmakers didn't have cross slides they held their gravers.

So looking online using the term instrument makers lathe looks a little bit better. The just a tiny bit bigger they have cross slides like this but I keep seeing the sprinkling of the word of watchmaker's lathe on practically every other picture. Model makers lathe definitely isn't right because they're just still a little bit bigger.

then in the book link I gave you starting at page 64 talks about the sizes of collets. then when I look at the book there is the other little problem which is American lathes which I'm guessing does not in cover all the other lathes made worldwide and of course if it was made for a factory use then move that's going to be even harder to find the end up with all sorts of strange and interesting factory tools that basically are impossible to figure out where they came from. Or sometimes what they're even used for.

 

[PeterLathe]

I suppose there were lots of small companies and back street foundries that churned out a small number of largely forgotten lathes too.