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A small lathe built in a Japanese prison camp (1949)
- wizzwizz4 2y agoOne of the pages is missing. I wonder whether anyone has a copy of it?
- card_zero 2y agoYes, it's here: https://archive.org/details/machinistsbedsid0000laut/page/158/mode/2up?q=%22machine+was+running.+The+cross%22 https://archive.org/details/machinistsbedsid0000laut/page/15...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- avhon1 2y agoIndeed, someone does! TFA is a scan of a reprint of the original article. The reprint is "The Machinist's Bedside Reader" by Guy Lautard. The missing page is pg. 159. The Internet Archive has a copy which can be checked out and read for free here: https://archive.org/details/machinistsbedsid0000laut https://archive.org/details/machinistsbedsid0000laut edit: the book is also currently in print, and can be purchased new on Amazon for $50 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953439063 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953439063
- class3shock 2y agoWow, as someone that loves vintage machine tools and owns a Monarch 10EE (http://www.lathes.co.uk/monarch/index.html http://www.lathes.co.uk/monarch/index.html) it's funny to see this little corner of the internet find its way here. This is one of those sites that has information likely not found anywhere else online and few places offline.
- varjag 2y agoNice one! I liked the carriage rollers 10EE has so much that I made similar ones on my Chinese lathe instead of finicky gibs it came with.
- class3shock 2y agoSounds like a fun project. How do you find the lathe? I always preferred old American iron to something new from China/Taiwan but having to haul around two tons of lathe when you move is not a trivial task.
- jdietrich 2y agoTaiwanese lathes are generally good, with some being truly excellent. The common Chinese benchtop lathes are best regarded as a kit of parts - they're crude, but can be made into a satisfactory machine with some fitting and fettling.
- varjag 2y agoHeh right nobody buys the mini lathe over a Monarch as a matter of preference! I got it when I wanted to learn some machining and didn't have a ton of space. Over the years had a few mods including the usual (tapered bearings on the spindle, 4" 4 jaw chuck…) and some funny ones. It's an okay machine but the design isn't rigid enough, it really needs the double amount cast iron for the bed given its swing. Still I did a lot of precision work on this that came really handy professionally later, when interacting with MEs and toolmakers. It looks really banged up now, and I had to change the leadscrew that became visibly worn. Funny enough the much derided Derlin change gears look pristine!
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoa. Unmarried, b. lots of room, or c. very understanding wife unit permits a man cave?
- class3shock 2y agoHaha, I am unattached but have no space to speak of sadly (a large home shop is a future goal, just need the home first along with the very understanding wife). It lived first in a friends garage, then a machine shop of another friend, and now in yet another friends garage (in another state). If you are trying to imagine all of that moving about I encourage you to do it with the Benny Hill theme tune playing, that should properly set the tone.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago:D Nice. I'm also working towards that goal of a man cave with neon and gold Schlitz sign and a pool table next to the milling machine, table saw, drill press, and central vac. 70's-90's rock playlist sets just about the right mood for making stuff.
- class3shock 2y agoThat's the dream. I have access to a nice makerspace to tide me over for now. I don't know if you follow the youtube machinist community at all but you may find some enjoyment in This Old Tony, Ave, Tom Lipton, or many of the others in it if the home shop bug has you.
- flir 2y agolooks at 230kg wood lathe mutters darkly My wife practically forced me to get the damn thing. She's not the one that has to get it into the back of the van.
- jcgrillo 2y agoThis website is a treasure. I am currently working at restoring a South Bend model 420 toolmaker lathe, but looking forward to owning a 10EE and a Bridgeport at some point. Need to build a decent heated shop first, though. The 420 is small enough that it can go in my living room but a 10EE needs a concrete floor, and without climate control it'll just rust.
- navane 2y agoI'm only part into the story, but I already love it. The prisoners-of-war were tired hiding their lathe every time they might be searched, that they hung up a sign "workshop" above one of their huts, and timed it so that the new round of guards thought it had always been there.
- BlueUmarell 2y agoAs I understood, one of the japanese officer's hut - which is even bolder! Hence why they tricked the translator to have the japanese character for "workshop". A lot of smart and bold moves all along. Especially as the japanese were known for their "harsh" treatments (humiliations, beatings, torture, slow death, brutal death etc etc) toward prisoners, anything that would lead to a cue that they were doing something hidden would have had a radical and definitive answer...
- dan-robertson 2y agoI assumed it was the hut used by the PoW officers. Japan did not treat PoWs particularly well (though British PoWs were treated much better than Chinese) and did not follow the 1929 Geneva Convention on the treatment of PoWs. Under that convention, officers are to be treated with due regard to their rank and part of that means being quartered separately from the other ranks (as well as not being made to work). I think officers would also be separated in PoW camps in Japan.
- darkwater 2y agoI don't fully understand why a convention that allegedly tries to protect human rights makes a so bold difference just based on job positions (aka ranks). I mean, I do understand where it comes from, and especially when it applies to prisoners of war, so military forces. They basically can only think in hierarchies so designing a system that works with hierarchies will have more chances to be actually followed. But still, I find it weird.
- avar 2y ago
- peteradio 2y ago[flagged]
- Rinzler89 2y agoInstead, they were trying to get lathed. I'll see myself out.
- 082349872349872 2y agoWhen your bed is true and all is aligned, you can hope to get a little tailstock?
- class3shock 2y agoIf nothing else it'll help you tap a hole properly.
- huytersd 2y agoThat just supports my argument that men shouldn’t have to try to get laid. It should be provided for free by the state. “If you can’t afford your own wife, one will be provided to you by the state”.
- 082349872349872 2y agoWhen Diogenes was reproached for public indecency, he replied "if I could get rid of hunger by rubbing my belly, I'd do that too"
- burcs 2y agoThis is fascinating really interesting to see how these are built first hand. My father-in-law is one of the only companies still building speed lathes and it's basically the same lathe they have built since 1937. I'm pretty sure their customers range from SpaceX to Pharma co's and they are just a small shop in midwest PA.
- avhon1 2y agoThese lathes? https://www.crozierspeedlathes.com/ https://www.crozierspeedlathes.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzaOsPcaoi4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzaOsPcaoi4 It looks to me like they're for hand-finishing (deburring or polishing?) parts. I wonder in what kinds of work that comes up often enough to justify dedicated machines?
- class3shock 2y agoAerospace, semiconductor, etc., basically anywhere you have precision round parts. You can debur alot by hand but not so much external diameters which are often done on these machines for low volume / prototyping / reworking / etc.
- burcs 2y agoHa you found them, yeah that's his company.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI wonder if there’s any resource that shows how to build all these tools from scratch. What would it take to bootstrap manufacturing?
- qup 2y agoYou're looking for the Gingery Lathe. He builds it and bootstraps a home metalworking shop, building new tools with the old ones. It's a book series.
- _whiteCaps_ 2y agoDepending on how far you want to go, you might like to read The Knowledge by Dartnell. It covers smelting, etc.
- jojobas 2y agoThat's likely impossible as all easily accessible coal and iron ore are long gone. Maybe if you have access to scrap metal.
- greenavocado 2y agoCoal is easily accessible on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/121215404611 https://www.ebay.com/itm/121215404611
- jojobas 2y ago"The early Mediterranean iron smelting started around 12th or 11th century BC. It is assumed the pioneering metallurgists sourced their coal off eBay."
- dylan604 2y agoBut that came to a grinding halt when the seller's PayPal account was closed for suspicious activity. This is also believed to be the reason the Roman formula for concrete was lost.
- miohtama 2y agoUnrelated to excellent article content, do we have today an AI solution to enhance the quality and readability of scanned PDFs?
- iancmceachern 2y agoIt doesn't necessarily need to be AI, it could be a simple filter, etc
- gield 2y agoOCR has been around for a few decades by now: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition
- hbn 2y agoFor better or for worse https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4594482/xerox-copiers-randomly-replacing-numbers-in-documents https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4594482/xerox-copiers-rand...
- notjulianjaynes 2y agoI'd also be curious about this as I am presently dealing with some PDFs with both handwriting and poorly scanned type. I can read and understand these documents but the text is not recognized using tesseract OCR.
- pbhjpbhj 2y agoI've been looking at handwriting recognition offerings and signed up for ChatGPT [1] to trial access for this task against Irish genealogical records, which it does quite well on. However, ChatGPT itself recommended that I use Transkribus [2]. That looks to be quite an esoteric interface, but my initial test suggests it's pretty good -- I've not made a proper comparison yet as I'm wanting to have a workflow of downloading images, transcribing them and maybe compiling them into a PDF with manual corrections. [1] an 'expert' like this but it wasn't this one I used, can't locate it right now as am on a different computer, https://chat.openai.com/g/g-LCtICWzCt-historical-handwriting-expert https://chat.openai.com/g/g-LCtICWzCt-historical-handwriting... [2] https://www.transkribus.org/ https://www.transkribus.org/
- iaseiadit 2y agoSome photos from the camp here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/eyewitness/galleries/changi-prison https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/eyewitness/galleri... Photo of men with artificial limbs built in the camp: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C4416 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C4416 A wireless set hidden in the sole of a prisoner's sandals: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C14187 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C14187
- mhh__ 2y ago> Please note: > This website contains names, images and voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. > This website contains war-related material, including images which some people may find confronting and disturbing. how trite
- kragen 2y agotraditional aboriginal people might not want to be exposed to that and close the web page rather than continuing. it's a taboo similar to certain kinds of photographs in cultures you may be more familiar with
- EnigmaFlare 2y agoIt's not really out of concern for people's cultures. Lots of cultures have all sorts of taboos about types of images or information. Muslim fundamentalists for instance don't like pictures of any people, of any ethnicity, alive or dead. This is just a nonsense fashion for the Australian government. All their websites have something like the one at the bottom of the page: "The Australian War Memorial acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and waters. We pay our respects to elders past and present."
- defrost 2y agoIt makes a change from chaining aboriginals neck to neck which they kept up after I was born, along with taking babies, and having exclusion zones "boundary roads" in cities. Is that the era you want to return to?
- gwern 2y agoMade a PDF with the missing page: https://gwern.net/doc/cs/security/1949-bradley.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/cs/security/1949-bradley.pdf
- joebig 2y agoYou are a life-saver. And resourceful as always.
- Daub 2y agoMy father showed me how to use a lathe when I was around 14. He warned me to never use it unless he was present. Of course I ignored him. The very first time I used it, my shirt sleeves caught in it and my shirt was ripped from my body in a second. I Never touched it again. Moral of the story: respect lathes.
- yboris 2y agoI wonder if he'd be more persuasive if he explained the reasons for not using it without supervision with graphic examples of danger.
- Daub 2y agoNow the internet is full of examples of such accidents. One glance of those would have been enough.
- ehnto 2y agoRotating assemblies in general, the amount of energy at play is often very deceptive. Ask anyone who has caught a finger in a spinning bicycle wheel.
- tvb12 2y agoMachining metal parts is pretty loud. How was any of this done in secret?
- defrost 2y agoCamp cooperation - time it with choir practice and|or any other loud activities, cheering during staged boxing matches, use lookouts to warn when guards get close, work under beds with blankets, sheets thrown over to drown noise, etc.
- Doxin 2y agoUsing a lathe isn't super loud unless you're doing it poorly or have some horrendous interrupted cut.
- acyou 2y agoLovely article. But I have my doubts. Were these prisoners really outwitting their guards, or might it have been the other way around? Is not instructing their captors in engineering subjects, navigation and astronomy, which all have substantial military applications, clearly disloyalty to the Allies at the time? Is this not just a story about how the Japanese were able to gain military intelligence on Western manufacturing and machine shop techniques from these brilliant craftsmen with their "secret" lathe? We have all seen the movie The Great Escape and various other prisoner/POW movies, but that's not how things were. Assuming that the bunkhouses were separate from the workshop facilities, and fully under Japanese control, I assume that the Japanese were able to inspect each and any of these marvelous technical works in progress at their leisure. The most cynical take is that it appears no effort was spared in sharing decades or even centuries of technological progress and advancement in various technologies with the Japanese, who at the time were at war with the Allies. In other words, you can be pretty smart, but pretty stupid. Or, as a POW you just need to do what you can to survive, and you're also smart enough to rescue yourself from court martial at the end.
- dpe82 2y ago> Is this not just a story about how the Japanese were able to gain military intelligence on Western manufacturing and machine shop techniques from these brilliant craftsmen with their "secret" lathe? Seems pretty unlikely; simple machine tools as described in this article were already an old and widely known technology at the time.
- jdietrich 2y agoThe Japanese entered the Second World War with a fleet of aircraft carriers and submarines. Before the war, they were importing Swiss machine tools and exporting watches to Europe and America. A craft-made lathe would have revealed no secrets to a country that already had a highly developed manufacturing industry.
- pjc50 2y agoPreviously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29645825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29645825 - a whole radio built in a POW camp, from scratch.
- flir 2y agoWhat I really want to know: where is it now?