High-quality black-and-white photographs of large old machines and tools

**marksbug** · Dec 8, 2020, 05:42 PM

these days tin dies are about 4" dia, these days we know how to do lots of stuff we knew how to differently long ago.
or they could be machining tires for trains.....

**Jon** · Dec 13, 2020, 11:25 AM

Contouring lathe with electronic follower. Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation. Homestead, PA 1953.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...r_fullsize.jpg

**12bolts** · Dec 14, 2020, 03:21 AM

Originally Posted by Jon

with_electronic_follower

Or thats just the biggest parting tool I've ever seen!

**Toolmaker51** · Dec 14, 2020, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by 12bolts

Or thats just the biggest parting tool I've ever seen!

That observation is not far from reality. The good old day's before CNC...
Expanding the view reveals the tracer pattern, lower left of machinist's feet. The V has an involute-like form, so the stylus is radiused; smaller than where they converge, fillet where they meet parallel sides, and where those meet outer diameter. Many tracers are hydraulic only, depth controlled by crossfeed, first passes
don't create full contour. In mill profiling the cutter is most often ball end. Lathe work then, works likewise, with a radiused tip bit, either case is to scale of pattern and stylus. Roughing was accomplished by changing stylus or cutter size accordingly, as most patterns were 1:1, but ratios work too.
Since parting is still profiling, it's not uncommon to chamfer edges with same cutter before depth gets too far along, using the compound. best results are when [you guessed correctly] parting tool has small corner radii and square face.

**Jon** · Dec 20, 2020, 03:32 PM

Reconditioning a 12,000 ton press. United States Steel Corporation. 1944.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...s_fullsize.jpg

**marksbug** · Dec 20, 2020, 03:46 PM

nowdays it's almost like everything is disposable... or if it's been there long enough it's replaced with better and old sent to aisa.

**C Tucker** · Dec 21, 2020, 06:13 PM

That big lathe looks a lot like the Poreba I used to run once in awhile. Ours wasn't a tracer, but it had a 60 inch chuck and was 40 feet between centers, with 2 saddles.

High-quality black-and-white photographs of large old machines and tools-dscn4465.jpg

**marksbug** · Dec 21, 2020, 06:58 PM

that would wear me out just cleaning every night.

**C Tucker** · Dec 21, 2020, 07:30 PM

We had one guy that never cleaned up. If he was making a LOT of chips, he always got the gofer guy to scoop chips for him. When I had to follow him, I always wrote the time spent on my card as "clean up after xxxx".

**marksbug** · Dec 22, 2020, 07:23 AM

I remember those guys. we did have one machine that stayed covered in cast iron shavings.it pissed off the boss when he saw it ,till I explaned to him that is I leave the shavings there the machine wont rust...if I remove them it will...then I told him I clean it almost every day.as I was cleaning it before every use. when I left there after about 2o years that machine still looked good.a few months lator it was not quite the same..and somewhat. I miss running that shop...well I miss the equipment.