I saw a lathe like that when I was in the Boston Naval Shipyard in the 1960s. It was used for working on the gun barrels of heavy cruisers (8 inch bore) and battleships (16 inch bore). It would have been fascinating to watch the millwrights when they installed the machine. The thing was gigantic.
ABOM sized lathe
Re: ABOM sized lathe
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Music isn’t at all difficult. All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!
Music isn’t at all difficult. All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!
Re: ABOM sized lathe
This is what I got from the writing on the picture, of the lathe, Harold showed.
"Niles Gun Boring and Turning Lathe delivered to a U.S. Government Arsenal in 1941. The lathe will turn and bore a gun 73" in diameter and 60 feet long. It has a bed 172 ft. long. There are three carriages, arranged so as to pass in front of the gun supports, enabling the gun to be turned and bored at the same time. Overall length of the machine is 240 ft. Weight 950,000 pounds"
"Niles Gun Boring and Turning Lathe delivered to a U.S. Government Arsenal in 1941. The lathe will turn and bore a gun 73" in diameter and 60 feet long. It has a bed 172 ft. long. There are three carriages, arranged so as to pass in front of the gun supports, enabling the gun to be turned and bored at the same time. Overall length of the machine is 240 ft. Weight 950,000 pounds"
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Re: ABOM sized lathe
A friend of mine produced a photo of a man sitting inside a giant lathe, scraping the ways. He was a long way from the camera. It was impossible to get enough of the machine in the picture to get an idea what it looked like. I have no idea what it was used for.
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Re: ABOM sized lathe
Those are battleship dimensions!
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Music isn’t at all difficult. All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!
Music isn’t at all difficult. All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!
Re: ABOM sized lathe
Remember, if you need to bore a barrel 60' long, you need more than 120' of way!
My dad discovered that after turning a cannon barrel longer than 12" on his 9x24 South Bend.
He had to wait about 10 years until he got his 12x36 Clausing 5914 to finally finish it.
Steve
My dad discovered that after turning a cannon barrel longer than 12" on his 9x24 South Bend.
He had to wait about 10 years until he got his 12x36 Clausing 5914 to finally finish it.
Steve
Re: ABOM sized lathe
The shipyard in Portland had a Niles lathe that is a 120 feet centers with a 54" swing. The compound had a motor and feed on it to cut tapers.
Re: ABOM sized lathe
If the carriage doesn't have a catwalk, table and chair on that for the machinist there small ones. Mesta Machine Company has some good history scattered around the net of some very large equipment. I believe they made some of the largest forgeing presses ever built. There was a great book about the company with some amazing pictures somewhere on the net but I've since lost the link. But today I don't think there's any place left in North America that could turn around and build those 16" guns and turrets like the big battle ships had. We have a few large enough lathes but it takes a whole lot more than that.
Re: ABOM sized lathe
So, would you use a DXA sized QCTP on that lathe?
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Re: ABOM sized lathe
I thought the battleship guns were made in a vertical lathe that was mostly beneath ground level, to avoid the problems with extreme lengths and gravity
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- SteveHGraham
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Re: ABOM sized lathe
The comments here made me wonder how the big guns are made. I found some interesting Youtubes. First one was made during WWI. It shows the manufacture of relatively small guns. One surprise: it shows what appears to be a round barrel being carved by a shaper.
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Re: ABOM sized lathe
Also found a link to a book page featuring a horizontal lathe 200 feet long, for naval guns.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iD5IA ... &q&f=false
https://books.google.com/books?id=iD5IA ... &q&f=false
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.