# Origin of Asian Lathe Design



## louosten (Sep 15, 2021)

Gentlemen,

The basic Asian lathe design is quite remarkable from an engineering standpoint. Although belt driven, it has some desirable features such as hardened V-ways, helical gearing in the headstock,, ball bearings, robust castings, metric & english screwcutting, power longitudinal & cross feeds, decent swing (11-12") and length (24-36"), and generally very versatile from a small shop standpoint. That it was originally built overseas and offered to the US at a competitive price is also somewhat amazing.

Not withstanding the idea that Taiwanese engineers could have developed the design independently, my hunch is that the basic design originated somewhere else and eventually found its way to these talented builders. One example of this is the Emco Maximat Super 11 lathe, originally designed and built in Austria. It is my hunch that Emco at some point in the recent past decided pass production on to Taiwan/China, where it was re-incarnated as the new South Bend 'Heavy Ten', currently offered by Grizzly.

Your thoughts and commentary are welcome, and best regards!

Lou O.
(1982j Enco Branded 11"x24 Taiwan Built 'Precision Bench Lathe'


----------



## RJSakowski (Sep 15, 2021)

Perhaps some of our European members can give some insight.  It would be interesting to learn the history.


----------



## Janderso (Sep 15, 2021)

Aaron,
We were just talking about these......
Lou, it seems the late 70's and 80's was the time frame where most manufacturer's drank from the Kool-Aid and moved their operations off shore.
We were moving from the carter years to the Reagan years.
This must have been a bad time for the labor unions and the blue collar workers who lost their jobs wholesale. (not political) =historical economics.


----------



## matthewsx (Sep 15, 2021)

Yes, most likely manufacturers moved production there and the designs were duplicated. The sad thing is very few refinements have been made since....


----------



## NCjeeper (Sep 15, 2021)

Janderso said:


> Lou, it seems the late 70's and 80's was the time frame where most manufacturer's drank from the Kool-Aid and moved their operations off shore.


Especially the clothing and textiles manufactures. Really hurt a lot of small towns that were supported by those plants.


----------



## ddickey (Sep 15, 2021)

I don't see any heavy 10's on offer from Grizzly.


----------



## Mitch Alsup (Sep 15, 2021)

NCjeeper said:


> Especially the clothing and textiles manufactures. Really hurt a lot of small towns that were supported by those plants.



Who cares about the workers when the boss makes so much money................


----------



## matthewsx (Sep 15, 2021)

Every business responds to competitive, wage, and supply pressure. 

Can policy help or harm? Sure....

But underlying economic conditions will certainly be most important.


For the OP....

I have a Samson lathe that appears to be one of these.



			Lin Huan Lathe
		


The South Bend 9" was widely copied and "improved" on by so many manufacturers that it might be argued that they were the genesis of the Asian lathes.



			South Bend 9-inch Lathe
		


Notably Boxford 






						Boxford Lathes
					

Power-feed apron as used on Boxford Model A, Model B and VSL lathes



					www.lathes.co.uk
				




in England.

Probably the thing which made this possible more than any was WWII which engaged factories all over the world in making precision machine tools to support the war effort. Once the war was over I'm sure enterprising entrepreneurs all over the world found opportunities and seeking competitive labor, and supply options this is what surely drove the factories in Taiwan and China towards what we have now.

John


----------



## Aaron_W (Sep 15, 2021)

I don't know about the larger machines but this was definitely the case with the common 9x20 lathe. It is clearly based on the Emco Compact 8. There is some discussion of this at Lathes UK. 
Emco did shift production to Taiwan with the Compact 8E (E for export), I don't know if the copies started before or after the shift in production. The design would eventually evolve adding a 1/2 Norton gear box which was not a feature of the Compact 8. 

Many of the small Asian knee mills clearly show some similarity to the small Clausing and Rockwell mills.


On a similar topic you may be interested in the book When the machine stopped. It is focused on a single company Houdele Industries which gobbled up many smaller US machine builders including Logan, Burke and Powermatic. The chapters devoted to their failure in the 80s as they started to face serious competition from Asia, first Japan and later Taiwan and China are particularly applicable.


----------



## Janderso (Sep 15, 2021)

I was involved in the transition in the baseball business.
Haiti was a major baseball manufacturing point.
When I was plant manager of Incrediball, Westar in 1983 in Port-Au-Prince, Spaulding, Rawlings, Debeer, Wilson were all there.
Taiwan was receiving the business due to the political unrest.
Incrediball was bought by Easton Sporting Goods.
That was a long time ago!


----------



## jwmay (Sep 15, 2021)

Well, for a very simplistic opinion... here's mine.
The original design was European. Americans never would have made dual dials. We're just too attached to the old feet/inches stuff. China knew whatever was being sold could be made cheaper there. They bought the machines they wanted to sell, reverse engineered them, and started selling them everywhere for cheaper than anyone else. The only thing we Americans like more than Imperial measurement is cheap stuff. So, we abandoned our American made products in favor of six times more stuff for the same money. Then American business was like, "hey guys, China can make our stuff cheaper, and Americans like cheap stuff. Let's have them do it!" And China was like , " Heck yeah we can make it cheaper!" And American business was like "This is awesome! Everybody wearing slacks gets a big bonus this year!" And China was like ,"Man we've got ALL the info. now! Let's get busy making cheaper versions of everything!" And American business was like , "What are all these dirty people doing here smoking cigarettes and taking long lunches? Let's close this place down entirely. Did everyone with slacks get their bonuses yet?" And finally, America was like " geez, credit is awesome! Let's all buy even MORE stuff!" And China was like, " heck yeah baby!". And now here we are. 
There may be more to it than that. But as an educated person with a whopping one year of American history under my belt, AND absolutely no experience with international business economics,  I'm totally qualified to spread the word. 
Oh but we were talking about the origin of that particular lathe design. Huh. Who knows? I'm pretty glad they did though. I never could have bought an Atlas brand new. It would have cost a years wages!


----------



## Aaron_W (Sep 16, 2021)

jwmay said:


> Well, for a very simplistic opinion... here's mine.
> The original design was European. Americans never would have made dual dials. We're just too attached to the old feet/inches stuff. China knew whatever was being sold could be made cheaper there. They bought the machines they wanted to sell, reverse engineered them, and started selling them everywhere for cheaper than anyone else. The only thing we Americans like more than Imperial measurement is cheap stuff. So, we abandoned our American made products in favor of six times more stuff for the same money. Then American business was like, "hey guys, China can make our stuff cheaper, and Americans like cheap stuff. Let's have them do it!" And China was like , " Heck yeah we can make it cheaper!" And American business was like "This is awesome! Everybody wearing slacks gets a big bonus this year!" And China was like ,"Man we've got ALL the info. now! Let's get busy making cheaper versions of everything!" And American business was like , "What are all these dirty people doing here smoking cigarettes and taking long lunches? Let's close this place down entirely. Did everyone with slacks get their bonuses yet?" And finally, America was like " geez, credit is awesome! Let's all buy even MORE stuff!" And China was like, " heck yeah baby!". And now here we are.
> There may be more to it than that. But as an educated person with a whopping one year of American history under my belt, AND absolutely no experience with international business economics,  I'm totally qualified to spread the word.
> Oh but we were talking about the origin of that particular lathe design. Huh. Who knows? I'm pretty glad they did though. I never could have bought an Atlas brand new. It would have cost a years wages!



In 1977 Sears sold the 12" Craftsman with stand for $1695, based on inflation that would be $7650 today. $7000 can get you into a Chinese 14x40 or Taiwanese  or a 13x40 or a 12x36 with extra goodies today.

As another comparison a Ford F-100 pickup started at $3800 in 1977 so the Craftsman lathe was about 1/2 the price of a new 1/2 ton pickup truck.


----------



## Janderso (Sep 16, 2021)

I tried this site >> https://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=3,800 
To see what that $3,800 F-100 is worth in todays money.
My 2017 F-150 4X4 XLT had an MSRP of $51,000. Not $17,000
Something went wrong with new truck pricing or the calculator is wrong??


----------



## jmkasunich (Sep 16, 2021)

Janderso said:


> I tried this site >> https://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=3,800
> To see what that $3,800 F-100 is worth in todays money.
> My 2017 F-150 4X4 XLT had an MSRP of $51,000. Not $17,000
> Something went wrong with new truck pricing or the calculator is wrong??


Something went wrong with truck pricing.  Trucks stopped being utilitarian vehicles and became status symbols with four-door cabs, fancy interiors, and tiny beds.


----------



## FOMOGO (Sep 16, 2021)

Not that hard to spend a 100k on a truck now. Know several people that own one and as far as I'm concerned, they can have them. They probably have more in maintenance cost in one year than I have in the life span of one my older trucks. Have never spent more than 5k on any vehicle, and I have some pretty nice ones. Mike


----------



## vtcnc (Sep 16, 2021)

louosten said:


> Your thoughts and commentary are welcome, and best regards!


Here is an interesting read. 





__





						Technological and industrial history of China - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## pdentrem (Sep 16, 2021)

Pickup trucks, don’t you dare to actually put something in the back! The bed liner might get dirty or even worst scratched! 3 years later that 100K+ is now on an off lease dealer at half that! Was at an ice cream shop earlier this summer and a Ferrari and a new fully loaded Silverado 4X4 were parked side by side. I wonder which one cost more.
Pierre


----------



## Steve-F (Sep 16, 2021)

Still driving my 1985 Toyota 4x4 long bed with 240K miles on it for the last 23 years with no end in site whatsoever


----------



## Aaron_W (Sep 16, 2021)

Janderso said:


> I tried this site >> https://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=3,800
> To see what that $3,800 F-100 is worth in todays money.
> My 2017 F-150 4X4 XLT had an MSRP of $51,000. Not $17,000
> Something went wrong with new truck pricing or the calculator is wrong??



Auto pricing started to spike in the 1990s.

In 1998 I got hired full time with the US Forest Service, and one of my collateral duties was tracking fleet usage on the district. This had me interacting frequently with the Forest fleet guy who was in charge of maintenance, tracking costs, vehicle replacement etc.

The Forest Service uses a system called Working Capital Fund, where the agency essentially makes car payments on a new vehicle but instead of the money going towards paying off a loan, instead the money goes into a fund specific to that vehicle to cover maintenance and eventual replacement of the vehicle (length of service varies by vehicle type, pickups usually have a life of about 6 years, a large vehicle like a fire engine 15 years, a heavy truck and trailer for a dozer might be 20+).

The fleet guy was close to retirement so had been in the job for quite some time. He said this system had worked fine for most of his career, but by the mid 1990s new vehicle prices were increasing faster than inflation, which was causing some mischief with his program. The WCF program covers all types of vehicles from econo sedans to fire engines and heavy equipment, but as you would expect the bulk of the fleet in a land management agency are pickup trucks and SUVs which seem to have been hit the hardest with price increases as they go from utility vehicles to utilitarian luxury vehicles. As a result the operating budget often has to kick in some extra to cover the unexpected increase in replacement cost, or the vehicle is still reliable it might get run longer to build up more in the fund. The service life is a balance as they try to replace vehicles before maintenance becomes an issue and at an age where they will still have a good sale price at auction (the money from the sale goes towards the replacement cost).

I went and picked up a brand new fire engine in 2001, it cost the agency $160,000. The engine I ran when I retired was a 2011 model. Based strictly on inflation it should have been $203,000 but when new it cost the agency $350,000. It was no more effective than the 10 year older engine (in fact the pump on the older engine was superior), but it did have an additional 50 horsepower, and a real engine brake vs transmission retarder.  It also had a 2007 compliant diesel with regeneration system (smog stuff) which I'm sure added significantly to the cost.

Admittedly the new engine had a much smoother ride thanks to the air ride cab and more car like interior. Also easier to drive as it was more like a big car. That older engine rode and drove like the medium duty truck it was. I actually found the ease of driving the newer engines a bit scary as new drivers didn't seem to give them the respect a 30,000lb vehicle deserves, many acted like they were driving a Toyota Corolla.


----------



## louosten (Sep 17, 2021)

I'd like to 'circle back' to the original question: Origin(s) of Asian Lathe Design. So far, I've heard the following:

1. It has to be European (Myford?)
2. Copies made from South Bend (American) and probably Logan and Atlas?
3. Manufacturing exported because of cost and Americans like cheap stuff that's good?
4. China (or Taiwan) bought machines they wanted to sell, and reverse engineered them
5. Machines in question became available in late '70s and '80s

OK, guys, thanks.  But was there a 'Granddaddy'  machine that was the original source example for the basic lathe design, available around mid '70s that was popular and suitable to make copies of ? And what was the economic impetus for manufacturing and marketing at this time?

Regards,,
Lou O.


----------



## Aaron_W (Sep 17, 2021)

Lathes UK Taiwanese lathes. 

http://www.lathes.co.uk/taiwan/

http://www.lathes.co.uk/taiwanese-1330-1340-1430-1440/

From this it would appear to be a native Taiwanese design with an eye towards meeting the preferences of both the American and European markets.


----------



## matthewsx (Sep 17, 2021)

Aaron_W said:


> Lathes UK Taiwanese lathes.
> 
> http://www.lathes.co.uk/taiwan/
> 
> ...


That’s my lathe

Still think it owes a lot to the South Bend but it could just be what they thought would sell.

And if so they were right.

Jonh


----------

