Mystery 8 mm ww Watchmakers Lathe W

[oenkyi]

Hello,

 

I have recently bought this watchmakers lathe and wanted to identify it's manufacturer. Since there is no maker's mark anywhere on the machine I started googling and found out that this thing is actually pretty odd in the way it was built.

Firstly the (presumably) hardened bed surfaces seem to have been screwed to the base and the screw heads ground over. I didn't find any similar lathe where this was done.

Second thing that I didn't find anywhere else is that there is no slot cut all the way through the bed so the normal method of attaching steady rests or cross slides to the bed with a bolt from the bottom isn't possible. Here it is done like in most head- and tail stocks with an eccentric clamping mechanism from the top to clamp both to the bed and the cross slide. Again something I haven't found else where.

Because of the color of the tarnished paint and overall style of the machine I believe it may be of american origin.

Another piece of potentially important information is, that I have another head stock of a more modern Boley and it fits the bed perfectly.

 

If you have ever seen something like this before or could give me any information at all I would be very gracious. And of course if you have any more questions I would be glad to answer them. Thanks

Greetings from Germany

[Dell]

Have you had a look at lathes.co.uk/ watchmaker lathe

[JohnR725]

15 hours ago, oenkyi said:

Firstly the (presumably) hardened bed surfaces seem to have been screwed to the base and the screw heads ground over. I didn't find any similar lathe where this was done.

yes I would say this is definitely unusual I don't think I've ever seen this either. But their are quite a few people manufacturing lathes for watchmakers and instrumentation and toolroom use that all can look similar. In addition to stuff that was made for factories. With often times will find pictures of factory tools with no identifications no marking and no idea what exactly they were designed for

then this part of the lathe looks quite interesting any idea why it's been designed this way?

 

[oenkyi]

19 hours ago, Dell said:

Have you had a look at lathes.co.uk/ watchmaker lathe

Hi, yeah I have done a lot of researching there

[oenkyi]

2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

yes I would say this is definitely unusual I don't think I've ever seen this either. But their are quite a few people manufacturing lathes for watchmakers and instrumentation and toolroom use that all can look similar. In addition to stuff that was made for factories. With often times will find pictures of factory tools with no identifications no marking and no idea what exactly they were designed for

then this part of the lathe looks quite interesting any idea why it's been designed this way?

 

Yeah I thought so too. It seems to be original since the paint is the same. My theory is, that it is either some sort of an attachment point for an indexing assembly or for a collet closer like this one.

Edited April 17 by oenkyi
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[caseback]

Any other markings than the "256"?

[oenkyi]

23 minutes ago, caseback said:

Any other markings than the "256"?

 

 

Yeah there are some numbers punched into some of the parts. Namely the base of the tail stock:

the mounting block between bed and cross slide:

the head stock:

and some components of the cross slide assembly:

[Dell]

The different numbers are a clue to the lathe being a collection of parts although saying that some manufacturers said that any parts they made would all fit each other part within tolerance