Oval turning lathes

[holmqer]

Spent a few hours at the Old Schwamb Mill, a 1860s vintage turning shop with half a dozen oval turning lathes. They were used to turn oval picture and mirror frames. The largest one can turn a frame 6 foot on its longest axis and can have a shorter axis as extreme as 30 inches shorter than longest.

The big lathe is incorporated into the structure of the building and was originally water powered. All the equipment runs off of leather belts.

Back in the late 19th century they would turn out 100,000 oval frames a year on 5 or 6 lathes. That's around 10 minutes per frame on the lathe! Pretty quick for old world manufacturing.

 

[dplloyd]

Eric, things like this are absolutely COOL! I see your are in CT. My dad's side of the family is from Deep River and elsewhere in that area. Most live now in Niantic.

Is that particular sawmill in CT? Any web site link for it to look at?

Regards.

 

[thewishman]

:tongue:HA! I could turn ovals on my old lathe with no trouble! HA!:tongue:




(Of course I was trying to turn things round, at the time.):redface:

 

[Woodlvr]

Of course no pics didn't happen. :wink: I have never seen a lathe like you described, so I guess I need to google it and learn about it.

 

[KenV]

And one can still purchase the hardware to add to a large current lathe to turn ovals.

http://www.vicmarc.com/default.asp?contentID=549


A bit on the spendy side and too large for pens -- but neat mechanical devise -

 

[workinforwood]

You see that steam powered lathe, he is spinning a crank shaft on that thing, so he is spinning items straight across, and then spinning an oval and then another shaft off center from the first one, it's intense.

 

[holmqer]

The Old Schwamb Mill is in Arlington MA, a suburb NW of Boston.

http://www.oldschwambmill.org/

 

[monophoto]

The Schwamb Mill is on my list of places to visit the next time wife and I go to Boston.


I believe that Norm Abrams did a feature on it on The New Yankee Workshop a few years ago.


For those who are interested in this kind of thing, another must-see is Hanford Mills in East Meredith, NY (just off I-88). Like Schwamb, Hanford was water powered with a steam backup, and featured a line-shaft with belt drives to the various machines. The neat thing is that while it is a museum today, the mill is still in operation. In addition to demonstrations, they have a molding machine that they use to make custom moldings for architectural restorations.

 

[holmqer]

Schwamb had a moulding machine too but sold it before the preservation group turned it into a museum. they still have examples of all their old custom moldings