"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Feb 2018 06:41:52 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

Hi Folks,

What is this machine?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.bb8abd1abc2c

The Washington Post article from which is comes refers to it as a
turret lathe (2/3 the way down the article, and just a "lathe"
elsewhere) in this obituary on "Rosie the Rivetter". But it looks
more like a milling machine with a rotary table than a turret lathe.
Is it a gear broach?

Anybody recognize it?

Dan

I don't think it's a lathe of any kind. It looks like a
special-purpose bed-type milling machine, built to handle that big
rotary table. The drive shaft suggests that it's a production
machine,
but it looks like she's locating the setup with the handwheels --
for
an operation that could have no possible relation to the powered
shaft. Here's a sharper version of that photo:

https://tinyurl.com/y9wycx3u

I question whether the photo is of a real operation, or whether it
was
cooked up for the photo. The reason I say that is that there's a
gear
fixtured on top, and a toolholder that looks like it could be for a
shaping operation. But the toolholder doesn't look like it's holding
a
shaping tool. And there's no way, in wartime production or any kind
of
production, that you would cut a gear like that with a single-point
cutting tool making straight cuts. Even if you did, one of the
handwheels would have a big and obvious index-pin dial on it.

The whole setup is screwy. The lathe chuck on top, on top of all of
that fixturing, looks like a kludge. There is no way you'd use a
chuck
that way for gear work. And if the suggestion is that she's
indicating
or gaging spelling intentional a gear tooth, there is no apparent
way to accomplish the measuring. And that is no freaking measuring
machine.

I'd give it four Pinocchios. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress