User talk:Bennie56

Open for discussion..Bennie56 (talk) 14:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Lathes and boring machines?
Hi, you recently added a piece on a 18th century cannon boring machine to the lathe article. Was this actually a lathe? All the cannon (and steam engine cylinder) boring machines of this period that I'm familiar with held the barrel fixed and rotated the tool. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I am pretty new to wikipedia, so not sure I am doing this right, but here she goes.. Not sure where you draw the boudary between a lathe and a different machine, but yes, this was a lathe for all practical purposes. The innovative element in this lathe was that the barrel rotated and not the tool. There were earlier machines (mostly vertical to use the weight of the barrel on the tool) but in all of those the tool turned, not the barrel. Turning the cannon made it possible to center the boring-hole much more accurately. It was used for both boring the hole and also for finishing the outside of the gun as you can see in the drawing. A similar machine was set up by Verbruggen in The Hague before he left Holland in 1770 but due to problems with the furnace it never produced many good guns. The stronger and lighter guns that could be made with the new technique led to better canons that were succesfully used in the American Revolutionary Wars. Als, this type of lathe significantly reduced the production tollerance of the materials produced with other lathe-like machines before. Henry Maudslay worked in Woolwich at the Arsenal so probably saw the machine in action which most likely inspired the innovations he later made to the Lathe design.


 * Thanks for clearing this up. "Lathe" vs "boring machine" is pretty clear - it's whether the workpiece or the tool is rotated. From what you've said here, this clearly is a lathe and it would thus be quite a significant step in their history. Thanks for adding it.
 * Sourcing is a big issue at WP. New additions are often challenged over this, so you if you have suitable references available, then it might be good to add them.
 * Just shout if you've got any questions. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:44, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The best reference is probably the book by Prof. Carel de Beer: The art of Gunfounding (The Casting of Branze Cannon in the late 18th Century), 1991, ISBN 0-948864-07-9, Published and Distributed by Jean Boudriot Publications, Ashley Lodge, Rotherfield, East Sussex TN6QX, England. Professor de Beer was a prominent professor at the Eindhoven University at the faculty of Industrial Engineering. Unfortunately he passed away in 2010. Currently Dr. Tetsuo Tomiyama at Delft Technical University would probably be the best reference. (T.Tomiyama@tudelft.nl, tel: +31 (0)15 27 81021). He includes the Verbruggen machine as a key turning point in the making of industrial "mother-machines" with increasing precision. Another reference is of course our family archive which contains many artefacts from the Verbruggens including guns, mortars, paintings, travel reports and of course, the 50 foundry drawings. They depict the whole process of making guns with the horizontal boring machine in high quality drawings that were made with camera obscura in the building of the Royal Brass Foundry in Woolwich that still exists today.


 * "mother-machines" is an interesting point. Tom Rolt brings it up too. I'd not considered this in the context of cannon boring-sized machines, but it's a major difference between the lathe (which has this useful behaviour) and the boring machine (which generally doesn't). Andy Dingley (talk) 11:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Lathe picture collection
Hi ! Ten years ago you added a picture of a Lathe drawn from a camera obscura that you mentioned was part of a 50 picture collection. Is the collection available online for one to look at? Thank you. Joaquin89uy (talk) 10:13, 20 September 2023 (UTC)