Wiring advice for small single phase lathe in home workshop

Thanks very much David,

Z.

Fifty years ago mine was the last school year that could leave at fifteen, I did not leave school but I did get a job over the summer holiday and was treated as an adult, because I could have been working there permanently.

I went out looking for a job on my bike asking local farmers for work, I had not realised that this particular farmer had a factory in his farm buildings supplying Massey Ferguson with tractor PTO shafts.

The farmer was actually a millionaire engineer and inventor and held numerous patents for farm machinery, cattle crushes and mining equipment. His house was a moated manor house and he also owned the third biggest boat in Weymouth Harbour which I also worked on with just the two of us going to stay on his boat for the weekend, the larger boats being the ferry to the Channel Islands and the Sanatogen Tonic Wine tanker that berthed and pumped out into railway tankers on the quayside.

In the factory I was cutting half inch squares rods into half inch cubes and tumbling them to ease the edges ready to be welded onto the sides of the PTO shafts.

The boss had built the machine himself, I loaded seven rods, clamped them together on the bed then used a hand winch to advance them into position to allow a cutting blade to come across and cut them to size, I got it down to a just under seven minute routine to set and run the machine, because I was on piecework.

The machine had an electric motor, a car gear box, moving cutting head, unguarded blade, suds pump and do on and so forth. 

In the mornings I would often unlock and work in there alone, there were four other guys who worked there, it needed a press operator, welder, machinists and a paint sprayer to complete the manufacturing process, but it was the most dysfunctional workforce I have ever known, so long as they completed their work the boss did not care when they did it, so one guy worked permanent nights, others turned up on a as and when basis.

So to sum up when I was fifteen I was working in a factory cutting metal on piecework on a hand built machine, often unsupervised and one weekend I went and stayed on the boss’s boat to help him change the deck lights.

There are reasons why machinery and other legislation have been introduced over the last fifty years!

Mind you, when I took my pay packet home my mother said it was ridiculous paying a kid a mans  wage, my dad pointed out I was on piecework and the rate was the rate and it should not vary depending on age or any other factors. I nearly left school and stayed working there, but that’s another story.

When I went home in the evening I would leave the machine set up so I could unlock in the morning and turn it on before actually clocking on or doing anything else, whilst the machine was running I was earning money, eventually I ended up cutting to many pieces and there was a substantial stock ready for the welder, so I ended up gardening, doing odd jobs and washing the boss’s Aston Martin for a few days on less money, because the boss did decide putting me on the tube press was a step too far.

Thursday lunchtime I was driving towards home up the M5 and being a man of a certain age thought sod it I've done enough for today.

So I pulled off the motorway and went to the National Trust property Tyntesfield, had a coffee and a Danish pastry then walked around the house and grounds.

It is claimed that it was the second house in the UK to have electricity according to the guides, however stood in the billiards room are just what you guys need for your workshops,  treadle operated lathes built for gentlemen to use for wood turning, no electricity required. 

looks like it could be a drummond round bed, or if not a very similar style from  that Edwardian Hobbyist era. Still worth a few bob on Ebay  but only top dollar if in really good nick. 
Some home engineer electric motor mods of a motor on the treadle plate turn the large wheel and pitman arm into a rotating automatic knee skinner and need treating with great caution. The commercial version had the flat belt for use with constantly tuning overhead line shafting to allow running in machine shops equipped with an external stationary engine. (and then either belt skid or a proper clutch  operated by something looking rather like a toilet pull)

Mine is the slightly more robust flat bed 'B' type, originally dual drive options either treadle or overhead line. 

M.

Sounds like the torque was delivered much the same as the old (King) cotton Mills around my patch, Flat belts constantly turning wheels and the magical way those tacklers would get the belt on a wheel whilst everything was still turning. Not H & S like these days but they had it down to a fine art . Those cotton mills were noisy, hence Les Dawson & Roy Barrowclough playing Aidy and Cissy lip-reading like their Mothers and aunties. Those were the days!