This one has me stumped, what is it?

For the right price i would definitely buy that, for what? I have no Idea but its got plenty of value just in the plate its made from in my opinion, assuming its not painted plywood!
 
I thought about buying it, but I have too much junk around here anyway.

What I really don't understand is that the X-Z dovetail assembly on the head looks to be much more massive than the rest of the machine would support. Looks like it would handle some serious cutting forces, way out of proportion to the rest of the machine.

The side plates on the frame look to be about 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick, and the supporting structure for the ''spindle'' bearing looks to be heavy sheet metal. The carriage seems to be just sitting on the frame, held in place by gravity? But maybe there is a bearing on the underside to hold it down. The pressed sheet metal rollers look too light for the machine.

The whole thing looks to be mounted on a piece of 3/4 inch plywood, with hand wheel leveling screws at each corner. This would suggest some kind of a portable machine that can be leveled easily.

I dunno. :dunno:
 
Plus it has 3 legs, if the dove tails hold a table, the machine runs upside down from the adjustable legs. One is missing.
Probably the hot lava melted it.
Maybe the work gets bolted to the table and remains stationary, the machine moves around the work.
What was the British airplane that had a stationary crankshaft? The engine was fastened to the propeller and moved around the crankshaft.
 
I see a distinct similarity between the adjustable chrome feet and shutoff handles from radiator globe valves. Notwithstanding the distinct possibility of a lava processor, I wonder if we're looking at a movie prop? And is there a coincidence that part of a label featuring .."Theater..." appears in one of of the other photos?

289351

-frank
 
"What was the British airplane that had a stationary crankshaft? The engine was fastened to the propeller and moved around the crankshaft. "

Sopwith Camel

This is only about 20 miles from me but I'm not sure what to do with it.
 
bpimm said:
"What was the British airplane that had a stationary crankshaft? The engine was fastened to the propeller and moved around the crankshaft. "

Sopwith Camel

This is only about 20 miles from me but I'm not sure what to do with it.
Click to expand...
Go check it out in person and see if you can get a better idea what it was for? :grin: It is really hard to tell if the other parts are actually supposed to go with it or not. It's also hard to tell if the base is wood or not as the one cross brace under the base on the left side of the pic is obviously wood by the texture and splinters. Like Jim says it's a really odd mixture of heavy duty and not. Very curious.
 
Janderso said:
What was the British airplane that had a stationary crankshaft?
Click to expand...
Many WW1 aircraft used "rotary" engines. They are like a radial engine, except the crankshaft is bolted to the firewall and the crankcase and cylinders (and everything else) rotates around it. There are quite a few of them around still, but often missing parts, and almost always missing the carburetor. The carburetor was bolted to the pilot's side of the "firewall" (not), and often was scrapped with the airframe while the engines were saved, for scrap metal if for nothing else. The carburetors mostly disappeared. ~45 years ago I enrolled in a night machining class at a local high school. It was completely project based, no book work time. One of the attendees, a Scottish bagpipe player, was casting and machining lots of intricate parts. I asked him about it, and he told me he was making a short run of carburetors off copies of the original plans for LeRhone rotary aircraft engines, and told me the entire story. He gave me a tour of his home shop and his 2 restored LeRhone engines. Also interesting is that those engines do NOT have a throttle, wide open all the time. The only engine control was a push button magneto switch on the joy stick, hold it down and the engine runs at full power, let off and the power stops completely. This was a pretty big deal , because the large amount of spinning engine weight made a large gyroscopic force that made those lightweight aircraft tricky and dangerous to fly, even without being shot at! Not only that, the engine ran on gasoline mixed with castor oil, which was the total loss lubricant. Each radial cylinder had a short exhaust pipe attached to it, and the exhaust, whether burned or not, washed over the pilot sitting behind the spinning engine. At worst the exhaust could catch on fire or explode, at best it was a powerful laxative when breathed in. So much for the gallant upper class pilots having the romantic job...
 
I believe Thomas Edison was at Ford's new assembly plant. He mentioned to Mr. Ford, very interesting but, what if the men stay on station, and the cars move by? (something to that affect)
What the heck were they thinking at the LeRhone engine plant? Bolt the crankshaft to the firewall?
Thanks Bob, I'm going to spend the afternoon researching the engine. Curios as I am.
Just watched a video, can you imagine the imbalance?
 
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