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Any history buffs here looking to preserve a museum piece?

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There is a John Bertram Lathe for sale on Kijiji for $2000. I'd suspect you can pick it up a little less because this wont be an easy mover.

If I had my retirement home and shop I'd not be telling everyone this, I'd be up in Peterborough loading this up on a truck.

www.kijiji.ca

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John Bertram & Sons - History | VintageMachinery.org

vintagemachinery.org
 
Bertram were a high quality firm, made lots tooling that was sold under the Pratt and Whitney Brand. However at 2000 imo it'll sit and sit...until John get his retirement home :D.

Now John if you want a slick project, I've got a Rivet 608 I've been thinking of selling (on odd days, even days its a keeper). Its a late 19th century and few lathes made since are as nice. This one is in pretty good nick. When new, the factory QA standard was to hold a tenth over 6 inches. The castings weren't painted but hand rubbed until the shone. A bench lathe that cost more than the average mans annual salary. Mine is stamped #1. Yup. Some would argue that was a batch number, no way it could be the first, but I'm not so sure...its stamped in the very spot every other one has the serial number stamped. A Canadian subplot to it as well, before heading south to make his fortune Rivett was from Montreal (I believe). Only wealthy establishments could afford one - mine came out of Cornell.

The Rivett you'd have something better than about anything made now and it goes down the stairs....with the Bertrand, its big and heavy and will be challenged to perform as well today's machines.

I know that sounded like sales pitch, not really, half of days I think I'd be nuts to sell it. Just saying, big old slow cone heads are going to have a very small market and will have to be priced very well to move (imo). Once they get cheap enough the farmers interest perk up and they trade (no disrespect Sasquatch, I grew up on a farm, but as a market they're not usually looking at machines the same as us enthusiasts do)
 
Mcgyver said:
Bertram were a high quality firm, made lots tooling that was sold under the Pratt and Whitney Brand. However at 2000 imo it'll sit and sit...until John get his retirement home :D.

Now John if you want a slick project, I've got a Rivet 608 I've been thinking of selling (on odd days, even days its a keeper). Its a late 19th century and few lathes made since are as nice. This one is in pretty good nick. When new, the factory QA standard was to hold a tenth over 6 inches. The castings weren't painted but hand rubbed until the shone. A bench lathe that cost more than the average mans annual salary. Mine is stamped #1. Yup. Some would argue that was a batch number, no way it could be the first, but I'm not so sure...its stamped in the very spot every other one has the serial number stamped. A Canadian subplot to it as well, before heading south to make his fortune Rivett was from Montreal (I believe). Only wealthy establishments could afford one - mine came out of Cornell.

The Rivett you'd have something better than about anything made now and it goes down the stairs....with the Bertrand, its big and heavy and will be challenged to perform as well today's machines.

I know that sounded like sales pitch, not really, half of days I think I'd be nuts to sell it. Just saying, big old slow cone heads are going to have a very small market and will have to be priced very well to move (imo). Once they get cheap enough the farmers interest perk up and they trade (no disrespect Sasquatch, I grew up on a farm, but as a market they're not usually looking at machines the same as us enthusiasts do)
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There is a reason I said that lathe belonged in a museum... a Canadian museum.

I've seen some lovely 608 restorations. They're popular with model engineers, perhaps not as popular as a myford super 7, but a nice lathe.

I know what you mean about attachment, my brother and I had a barnes lathe. I did not want to sell, my brother did because he was going thru divorce and it had to be moved from old shop.

Just out of curiousity, how much would you sell it for
 
Mcgyver said:
I've been thinking of selling (on odd days, even days its a keeper).
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You won't have as much time for these Resto projects once the pandemic ends & you start hosting Scraping With Mcgyver sessions for forum members LOL.
 
PeterT said:
You won't have as much time for these Resto projects once the pandemic ends & you start hosting Scraping With Mcgyver sessions for forum members LOL.
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Mcgyvers patent insomnia tonic; recommended therapy to induce superficial aches and pains. I wrote a 12 part series in HSM, an attempt take the mystery of it. (its NOT an art, its skill be learned just like taping a hole) and have been working for years now on a follow piece, Reconditioning a Lathe. It takes years because of course you have to do all the projects to generate the photos. Some of the content has been previewed here.

Between those two pieces (which will hopefully end up a book) it'll be all I have to say on the topic, which is quite a lot, lol. I leave it to the masochists to seek the issues out; it would inhumane to subject anyone to a in person session (much harder to close the cover and put it down)
 
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Mcgyver said:
Mcgyvers patent insomnia tonic; recommended therapy to induce superficial aches and pains. I wrote a 12 part series in HSM, an attempt take the mystery of it. (its NOT an art, its skill be learned just like taping a hole) and have been working for years now on a follow piece, Reconditioning a Lathe. It takes years because of course you have to do all the projects to generate the photos. Some of the content has been previewed here.

Between those two pieces (which will hopefully end up a book) it'll be all I have to say on the topic, which is quite a lot, lol. I leave it to the masochists to seek the issues out; it would inhumane to subject anyone to a in person session (much harder to close the cover and put it down)

PS..thanks John!
Click to expand...

N.P.

BTW I read a couple of the articles at my father in laws, but most of the issues he'd loaned to someone and never got back. I'd buy the book. I've tried to read everything I can on scraping. I keep trying to buy camelback straight edges but keep getting scooped.
 
cool. They are hard to find. There are a few guys making them and selling them unmachined which might be the best bet. I believe they are stress relieved. I've also go a bunch, some a couple over a couple of feet long and some smaller that I've made out of durabar, i.e. just a rectangular prism not an arched casting, and they are perfectly stable. One set, the over 2' long ones, were made by a fiend 50 years ago when he was in England and all surfaces blue out perfectly ...so the don't have to have be that arch shape to be incredibly stable.
 
TorontoBuilder said:
I keep trying to buy camelback straight edges
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me too.

I'm in the market for a 30" camelback as well. almost got a free one out of illinois, but the shipping was 400$. Then I found out about the Thunder Bay connection and could have done it far, far, cheaper, so I missed that one.
 
Mcgyver said:
I wrote a 12 part series in HSM, an attempt take the mystery of it......Between those two pieces (which will hopefully end up a book) it'll be all I have to say on the topic, which is quite a lot, lol.
Click to expand...

Oh, interesting. Well don't feel compelled to answer if there is something underway you're not ready to speak to, but are you saying HSM might conglomerate your articles into a book like they have done for other themed projects? Or you mean book as in you will initiate something yourself? I think maybe we were chatting about e-publishing at some point & I got the sense you weren't too keen on it or maybe some other issue. Again, not being nosey. Just wondering when I should initiate PayPal LOL. Buying 12 USA back issues would probably equate to a book price.

@David_R8 mentioned this in another post. A hobbyist member on another forum. Not my place to speculate on sales/profitability/content quality but I have noticed a trend for 'niche publishing' which is probably a good thing. I suspect it was a bigger effort/commitment/risk in the past with conventional paper publishers for more specialized topics.

Introduction to Indexable Tooling for the Metal Lathe: A User Guide: Best, David P.: 9798753874993: Books - Amazon.ca

Introduction to Indexable Tooling for the Metal Lathe: A User Guide: Best, David P.: 9798753874993: Books - Amazon.ca
www.amazon.ca
 
This lathe was in the Sandspit generating station on Haida Gwaii. It was gone the last time I was
there in 2019. A 1927 Magdeburg. The chuck is 12" diameter. It would have been sold on the BC Auction site.
3367918773_1f821983f4_b.jpg

3367918763_27faf02595_b.jpg

3367918767_efbdd311c9_b.jpg

3367918781_44e3b9ff40_b.jpg
 
Peter, so the story is, Village Press wants to do a book on the scraping article + others I've done but I've been holding off wanting to get the lathe reconditioning article done so the whole book would be about scraping: Lathe reconditioning, plus the original series plus the alignment tool article. The lathe article has been time consuming and is still along way out. It will cover 3 lathes in order to give coverage to the common form factors: an instrument makers lathe, box way screw cutting lathe and the most common, the inverted V way screw cutting lathe. The instrument makers lathe is 99% done (it needed the spindle redone as well, mega job) and beds of the other two are done as is one one cross slide. Two headstocks, two tailstocks and one carriage remain and I'm freed from my purgatory (model engineering/horology is the end game) . Those three plus some cameos from two more lol. Alignment tool photo below

dfSlITa.jpg
 
Mcgyver said:
Peter, so the story is, Village Press wants to do a book on the scraping article + others I've done but I've been holding off wanting to get the lathe reconditioning article done so the whole book would be about scraping: Lathe reconditioning, plus the original series plus the alignment tool article. The lathe article has been time consuming and is still along way out. It will cover 3 lathes in order to give coverage to the common form factors: an instrument makers lathe, box way screw cutting lathe and the most common, the inverted V way screw cutting lathe. The instrument makers lathe is 99% done (it needed the spindle redone as well, mega job) and beds of the other two are done as is one one cross slide. Two headstocks, two tailstocks and one carriage remain and I'm freed from my purgatory (model engineering/horology is the end game) . Those three plus some cameos from two more lol. Alignment tool photo below

dfSlITa.jpg
Click to expand...


Is this tool available for purchase anywhere? Or must it be custom fabricated?
 
John, its functionality is fashioned after the Kingway tool (although with a number of improvements) and the son of the inventor says he's going to relaunch the product. Other than that its make one, or pay a hefty sum on ebay for an Kingway. The view above is one function of it, the other is as a carrier for a Starrett 199 master precision level. Using the level is how you get the first two ways (one V and one flat) parallel, once the two long ones are done, you use it with an indicator for subsequent surfaces
 
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