Allis-Chalmers lathe

[Richard Hed]

Yes, a little more off topic but watching him pounding in nails with the mirror blank in a video shows how forgive the process is and yet, with care and persistence, be extremely precise. An interesting comment that he made, and it applies to model/miniature machining as well was that there is no such thing as a failure, even if it means throwing the mirror blank against a hydrant and starting over, he truly did make astronomy accessible to the amateur.

It's not really off topic because it's me who started this topic and my topics intend to be more general than any title gives it. Yes, apparently he told his students to not read the damned books on the subject of mirror making because they got it all wrong. One day a student said "I was reading . . . " John interrupted him and said "What? You've been reading books?!" Of course we all laugh at that. As for myself, I HAD to read the books to do the work as I didn't have a John Dobson in Moalboal, Cebu, Philippines when I was grinding my first 6". I did pretty goo too up till the finest polish which I am having a difficult time with. Anyway that is in the Phils now and I am in the Soviet of Washington with lots of projects to do: hmmmm, wine racking today and putting wine into secondaries, then prepare a . . . . blah bla bla. Lots of things to do before I can start on my little machining projects which are what I look forward to the most.

 

[goldstar31]

I drink malt whisky once a week with an equally ancient half Chinese /half Scouse millionaire or better. We both subscribe to the little known concept of 'Filling Niches' He's trying to catch up with me but he is only 86. We both did 'our stint of National Service' for King and Counntry and looking back, I had a whale of a time) and ate some too)
But I had 'books' and more 'books' and had 2 utterly useless characters that were no good in what seemed tobe 'another Bletchley Park, the I had a male ballet dancer, a World's leading trombone player and a nice little fellow who became a lifetime friend who rode a little BSA Bantam motor bike and got paid for doing it!
I ran a Technical Library amongst a host of other things(like forgery) and as far s that went, I ended up as arguably one of the two richest guys in the Royal Air Force. All we had to do was ' pass out our exams at over 80% and it. was like the prostitute who , liked it,, didd it and got paid for it. We were only still 18 and we sat and like overgrown school boys happily chortled as naughty boys do.
So we had "TWICE what the rest of the herd had' and I engineered flights in anything that remotely worked, I got into the cinema free or the best seats for the cheapest ones. I ran a billet of blokes, let them play poker in my bunk room and in return- I would have my bed made up. a hot cup of 'kai' and acess to signals that I really ought not to have. I dodged sports afternoon, went to London on a forged leave pass( I did forms as well as servicing books) and got a huge discount then I queued up for theatre tickets which cost only the admin charge of 2 old pennies and I got to see almost all the London Shows and even ended up in the Grand Tier of the Royal Albert Hall- in the same row as the Duke of Gloucester's and the ice dance and ice hockey shows in Wembley in London were free.
With a bunch of impossible weirdos, my little source of most things mechanical in book form was mine- for the ordering.
Laughingly, along the road from where part of the Dirty Dozen was filmed, there was the Magazine Section of the British Library. Need I say more?

 

[Richard Hed]

I drink malt whisky once a week with an equally ancient half Chinese /half Scouse millionaire or better. We both subscribe to the little known concept of 'Filling Niches' He's trying to catch up with me but he is only 86. We both did 'our stint of National Service' for King and Counntry and looking back, I had a whale of a time) and ate some too)
But I had 'books' and more 'books' and had 2 utterly useless characters that were no good in what seemed tobe 'another Bletchley Park, the I had a male ballet dancer, a World's leading trombone player and a nice little fellow who became a lifetime friend who rode a little BSA Bantam motor bike and got paid for doing it!
I ran a Technical Library amongst a host of other things(like forgery) and as far s that went, I ended up as arguably one of the two richest guys in the Royal Air Force. All we had to do was ' pass out our exams at over 80% and it. was like the prostitute who , liked it,, didd it and got paid for it. We were only still 18 and we sat and like overgrown school boys happily chortled as naughty boys do.
So we had "TWICE what the rest of the herd had' and I engineered flights in anything that remotely worked, I got into the cinema free or the best seats for the cheapest ones. I ran a billet of blokes, let them play poker in my bunk room and in return- I would have my bed made up. a hot cup of 'kai' and acess to signals that I really ought not to have. I dodged sports afternoon, went to London on a forged leave pass( I did forms as well as servicing books) and got a huge discount then I queued up for theatre tickets which cost only the admin charge of 2 old pennies and I got to see almost all the London Shows and even ended up in the Grand Tier of the Royal Albert Hall- in the same row as the Duke of Gloucester's and the ice dance and ice hockey shows in Wembley in London were free.
With a bunch of impossible weirdos, my little source of most things mechanical in book form was mine- for the ordering.
Laughingly, along the road from where part of the Dirty Dozen was filmed, there was the Magazine Section of the British Library. Need I say more?

You are STILL a naughty boy!

 

[goldstar31]

You are STILL a naughty boy!

I ascribe it to 'genetics'. My father in WW1 trained as a boy sapper and was a farrier. One day one of the horses decided to have a day off. My father lit a bale of hay nder it-- and it went around the Anglesey several times- complete with cart! It was greatly accepted and he spent 4 years of the war teaching bridge building across Menai Strait. No not the proper bridge that was Telford!
Then there was/is Rowan Sebastian Atkinson. Seemingly a possible relative. Kicked out of every school and university and has ended up as with a Degree in Electronics and then a Master of Arts at Oxford-- and became Blackadder and of course, Mr Bean-- and awfully rich.
He filled a niche- if you think about it

Regards
Norman Atkinson

 

[Richard Hed]

I ascribe it to 'genetics'. My father in WW1 trained as a boy sapper and was a farrier. One day one of the horses decided to have a day off. My father lit a bale of hay nder it-- and it went around the Anglesey several times- complete with cart! It was greatly accepted and he spent 4 years of the war teaching bridge building across Menai Strait. No not the proper bridge that was Telford!
Then there was/is Rowan Sebastian Atkinson. Seemingly a possible relative. Kicked out of every school and university and has ended up as with a Degree in Electronics and then a Master of Arts at Oxford-- and became Blackadder and of course, Mr Bean-- and awfully rich.
He filled a niche- if you think about it

Regards
Norman Atkinson

What did you expect? Smart people are always cut-ups and get kikt out of school.

 

[b7100]

I havn't read all the posts but one mentioned an advance/rumley lathe at a museum. Not sure if it had been mentioned but Allis Chalmers bought out Advance Rumley so the lathe mentioned may very well have been Allis Chalmers. Once a great company has been sold off bit by bit.

 

[Richard Hed]

I havn't read all the posts but one mentioned an advance/rumley lathe at a museum. Not sure if it had been mentioned but Allis Chalmers bought out Advance Rumley so the lathe mentioned may very well have been Allis Chalmers. Once a great company has been sold off bit by bit.

It turned out to be an American Tool Works lathe with an Allis-Chalmers motor. It sold at auction for 150$. I didn't bother bidding as it would have been nothing but a hassle and too big for my garage. Teh company misst out tho', as I would have given them 400$ 3 months ago.