# How Colchester Used to Make 'Em



## SnakeyJ (Apr 12, 2020)

A great piece of period footage and advertising for Colchester Lathes - lots of detail on the full manufacturing process and well worth watching....


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## Janderso (Apr 12, 2020)

Watching them induction harden each gear tooth is something you would never see today.
Since I have a Colchester, made in England around this time period, I find this video to be very satisfying.


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## SnakeyJ (Apr 14, 2020)

Engineering - a bit of a lost art nowadays, I particularly liked the bed casting, machining and induction hardening - lost arts on this side of the pond


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## Janderso (Apr 14, 2020)

Just for fun, I looked up the Gamet bearings for my lathe. In case someday I got a wild hair. (there is nothing wrong with the ones I already have!!)
Those 3 Gamet ultra precision bearings would run $3,656 plus tax and shipping.
I paid $5,000 for the lathe.
Holy smokers.


SnakeyJ said:


> Engineering - a bit of a lost art nowadays, I particularly liked the bed casting, machining and induction hardening - lost arts on this side of the pond


I wonder how they do it today? (gear hardening I mean)
The castings are beautiful. Plenty of craftsmen working in those plants.


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## Bob Korves (Apr 14, 2020)

Off topic, but I once owned one of the vans shown at 24:00 in the video, a 1960 Thames 10 CWT, model 400e.  Mine was left hand drive to suit American roads, and was the delivery van body type, not a passenger van.  It was a crude but simple and robust vehicle, and I enjoyed driving the rare (in the USA) machine around town.  It was originally purchased and operated by the local Coca Cola bottling company.  It was similar in size to a Volkswagen van, but front engine, rear wheel drive.








						Thames (commercial vehicles) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Janderso (Apr 14, 2020)

Looks like a chick magnet Bob. I bet you had to beat them off with a stick, oh, this didn’t come out quite right


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## Bob Korves (Apr 14, 2020)

Janderso said:


> Looks like a chick magnet Bob. I bet you had to beat them off with a stick, oh, this didn’t come out quite right


I won't touch that with a 10 foot pole, Jeff...


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## Janderso (Apr 15, 2020)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha


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## Sparweb (Aug 27, 2020)

Thank you - great video!
I used to work for an engineering company that had a Colchester lathe in the shop.  My favourite.

_9:13 - "Zinc chromate primer makes a good base for the paint_" and the guy sprays it on with no mask on.  How times have changed!


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## john.k (Aug 27, 2020)

Yeah ,that probably explains why none of my friends have made 75,.....however ,I took precautions ....I used to turn my head to one side .....cant say safer than that.


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