The Machines

Materials links

updated 08/04/13

Antique Watchmaking Machinery

Antique machines always have had a certain attraction for me. This attraction is both aesthetic and with respect to usual quality of their workmanship. Both aspect are indeed related. Fifty or a hundred years ago many manufacturers took a certain pride in the finish and look of their products that is utterly unthinkable in the age of 'shareholder value'.

Just look at those old toolroom lathes and millers: beautifully ground and hand-scraped ways, polished steel, bronze and brass ... For the serious model engineer and ship modeller such old machines are often much better value than what is offered specifically for them on today's market.

The Machines

Clicking on the pictures below takes you to the respective section of the Web-site.


6 mm Lathe	8 mm WW Lathe	Milling Machines	Drills	Shaping Machine

Materials links

Shop-made attachments

Machine tools are nothing without their accessories. Below are links to a selection of attachments I made for the lathes and the milling machines.


Geared dividing head for the lathes	Dividing attachment for the mills	Tilting device for toolmaker's vice	Upright collet holder	Miniature steady rest	Micro fixed steady	Micro vice


Raising blocks for the WW-lathe	Qick-change tool posts	Large boring head	Hand-held collet holder	Radius turning tool	Micro boring head

Materials links

Catalogue Pictures

Below, I am adding various pictures from a 1912 Wolf, Jahn & Co., from a 1930s(?) Lorch, Schmidt & Co., antique Boley and other catalogues. In no way, however, I shall attempt to compete with Tony Griffith's excellent Web-site: www.lathes.co.uk.
A very comprehensive and nicely laid out site with both, antique catalogues and pictures is that of another Lorch-'addict': Steffen Pahlow.

Universal milling machines from an original copy of a 1912 Wolf, Jahn & Co. catalogue

These milling machines were built around the headstocks (simple or backgeared) of the equivalent lathes.


Model 'DD' No. A (No. B is backgeared), table 350 x 120 mm, spindle bored for 15 mm collets, net weight 80 Kg	Model 'DD' No. C backgeared, automatic x-table feed, table 350 x 120 mm, spindle bored for 15 mm collets, net weight 100 Kg	Model 'DD' No. E (includes angle plate to convert it into vertical miller), backgeared, automatic x-table feed, table 350 x 120 mm, spindle bored for 15 mm collets, net weight 110 Kg	Model 'G' No. 1 backgeared, automatic x-table feed, table 600 x 180 mm, spindle bored for 15 mm collets, net weight 340 Kg	Model 'G' No. 2 backgeared, automatic x-table feed, table 600 x 180 mm, spindle bored for 15 mm collets, net weight 350 Kg

Horological Milling Machines from 1910ish and 1930ish Boley catalogues

All these machines take 8 mm WW collets


Model 80 (c. 1910)	Model 80 (c. 1930)	Model 80a (c. 1930)	Model 81 (c. 1910)	Model 81b (c. 1910)	Universal miller (c. 1910) with integrated divinding head

More Small Milling Machines


Small miller from a beautifully made pre-WW I catalogue of the Berlin firm F.A. Deichen	Small (table was 220 mm x 80 mm) bench miller made by Köpings Mekaniska Verkstad AB in Sweden. From a c. 1910 SVEA catalogue

Images of horological and other small machine tools in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris


Hand-operated gear-shaper 18th century				Hand-operated gear-shaper 18th century		Dividing machine Pierre Fardoil, c. 1715	File cutting machine Pierre Fardoil, c. 1700	File cutting machine Pierre Fardoil, c. 1700


Lathe for cutting fusee cones 18th century		Gear-hobbing machine Théodore Olivier, c. 1840			Vertical shaping or slotting machine Model, c. 1840			Slot-milling machine by Sharp & Stewart, USA, model exhibited at the Exposition Universelle 1862