Old school lathing/ barrel/ receiver threading

[beechbum444]

Question..... how did the old school rifle makers thread the barrels and receivers for the 1898 mausers....Mosins....Marlins .....Winchester’s ...maybe 1890 too early 1900s we get soo carried away with technology these days .. 4 chuck lathes with 0.0004 run out deviation ....I don’t think they had that technology back then...

Regards

[labradigger1]

I’m guessing turned between centers with a lathe dog and steady rest then single pointed threads. It’s how I do it.

[Jeff Michel]

Good question. For internal threads, turret lathe with a tap. External threads, self-opening die head e.g. geometric. Turret lathe being used for both operations. Don't kid yourself. Their equipment was every bit as good as anything we have today, probably better in a lot of ways. Just manually operated. To be a machinist a hundred years ago required a great deal of training/skill and not the least ability. Same requirements apply today. Today, we are blessed with Computer Numerical Controlled equipment and that increases productivity, not accuracy or quality. If you are interested, Colvin and Stanley printed a series of instructional books on machining of pretty much all disciplines. All pre-war/war time production methods. Since all I have is manual stuff, I have found the information extremely useful, especially gear cutting.

[uscra112]

Receivers my thought would be some sort of fixture on a horizontal milling machine, tap in the spindle. Feed the table, not the spindle. But there are pictures of a multi-spindle machine once used at the Springfield Armory that was essentially a glorified drill press. By the 1920s, they might have been using some sort of dial index machine, just as is used today in the auto industry for high production rates.

Barrels as he said - probably a self-opening die head, on a turret lathe.

One thing that has always teased me is how Winchester managed to "clock" their threads so accurately in the 1885 single shots, so that barrels will interchange without fitting. I think I know, but I'll let you all think about it.

[redneck1]

When it came to the machining , think rows and rows of various machinery . More often then not every single operation would have a dedicated machine and fixture .
Something like a rifle bolt might have 10 or more machines dedicated to making it , machinery and labor was cheap .

[salty dog]

They had good machinery back then, just powered differently:

[jmorris]

The lathe is an ancient tool. The earliest evidence of a lathe dates back to Ancient Egypt around 1300 BC.[2] There is also tenuous evidence for its existence at a Mycenaean Greek site, dating back as far as the 13th or 14th century BC.[3]

They were likely rudimentary back then but that’s 1300 years before Jesus was born. Another 1890 years later they were already pretty good. Now once you have one setup all you have to do is change parts, check them, adjust off sets if needed and hit run.

[BeeMan]

Look up a copy of 'The Perfectionists' by Simon Winchester. It is a bit British-centric and challenges the validity of some American exploits in the Industrial Revolution. Also, the story line starts to feel a bit scripted about halfway through. Still, it is a worthwhile read on the inter-related history of precision, development of machine tools, mass production, etc.

[country gent]

Back in that time period each operation or so was a machine and fixture. Drill presses were very prevalent in production shops ( some mere multiple spindles with an operator for each spindle and the fixtures slid across a common table). threads would be cut between centers or in a 4 jaw chuck depending on needed precision. Collets were used a lot also. Also keep in mind that in this time period special machines cutters and tooling were made in house to di just what was needed. Horizontal mills were in use more than verticals, A lathe could be a simple engine lathe, turret lathe or screw machine. There were many drill presses. Shapers were in use and much more so than today. Grinders were also used a lot. But the biggest difference was the work ethic / pride taken by the workers running this equipment. They were true craftsman. They knew how to take backlash out of the machine and what to do. Also in early fire arm production there was a lot of hand fitting being done by skilled hands.

[Red River Rick]

....I don’t think they had that technology back then...
Regards

You might be surprised. Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-xMCFOwllE

RRR

[M-Tecs]

CNC machines, CCM inspection, better bearings and better tooling allows greatly increased tolerances today but the doesn't mean they weren't capable of doing them. Even todays high tolerance centerless grinders use Babbitt bearing since they are more accurate then even the best roller bearings. That technology is a couple of hundred years old.

I have read that bearing manufactures have reached the limit of accuracy for bearings produced on earth due to gravity.

[redneck1]

On the note of the limitations of metal bearing .... let us marvel at the wonders of technology and see what super ultra precision looks like in the modern era with the use of stone and air .

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...Axr4jcJbFgHiPa

[samari46]

A young apprentice gunsmith in germany had a long apprentiship before he was allowed to make firearms. In fact before he got his degree he had to make a rifle and take it before the guild and they would check it out and either approve or disapprove it. That's the way they did things back then. Not some parts changer. Frank

[beechbum444]

Keep the info coming .... marlin leveractions are my favorite and I guess in the back of my mind I’d like to know how they made the receivers and barrels for the 1881 1893 and 1894 I’m convinced that when they reintroduced the 1894s in the sixties someone remembered that the old tooling was out in a pole barn and modern metallurgy would support higher pressure rounds.. parr’s from a 1970s action fit in pre 1900 actions..it’s like they were made on same tooling

[W.R.Buchanan]

Guys: The Lathe Spindle was perfected with virtually Zero Run Out before the 1700's Jewelers lathes from that time period had "Cone Bearings" which were lapped to perfect fit with no more clearance than required for an oil film of a few Millionths. Jewelers lathes were making Hyper Precision Parts for Timepieces by 1750 and the guy who won the Longitude Challenge after fielding about 4 iterations of "time keeping contraptions" Ended up using two Swiss Made Watches that were regulated to less than 1 second of error per month! 2 were needed to check each other.

My Mechanical Seiko Watch, which I have had on my Wrist for nearly 30 years has gained about 5 minutes per week, every week, since I've owned it! When it was sent to Seiko for regulation they actually told me that it was as close as they could get it. I refused to pay them, and told them the story from 1785 and they then decided not to charge me.

Crystal Lake OD and ID Grinders have the same style Spindle Bearings and are being produced today on Clovis CA and are regarded as the most accurate OD grinders made. Same design for over 100 years and most of the new ones are actually old ones that were rebuilt.

My Hardinge Chucker which was made in 1963 will split tenths and repeat all day long, and it came out of Statham Industries where it had been ran by friends of mine for 30 years before I got it!

Not much new in the Metal Removal World of Machinery.

What will put us all out of business is the "Replicator" which will be the high speed version of what is currently known as the "3D Printer." Until then,,, we make chips!

Randy

[uscra112]

Gotta pick a nit here: Harrison's final chronometer was based upon a French "pocket watch" design, it was not a Swiss watch. Watch technology of the time was only capable of a few minutes per day until he improved it. His three earlier designs were brilliant, and one is still running in a museum in England. They were amazing kludges. Near as I can tell, he may have invented, or at least perfected, the roller bearing for those. The fourth is just a large jeweled watch movement of a kind we would recognize today, but they won't run that one. IT would wear out if they did. And to his eternal disgust it required lubricant, which the others didn't.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in his shop, though. He fought a long battle with, among others, Isaac Newton, over the matter of whether he should receive the royal longitude prize.

https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Gen...gateway&sr=8-1

Machine tool company I worked for long ago rebuilt Ex-Cell-O grinders for Pratt & Whitney. One type had silver spindle bearings, and was fitted so close that the lubricant was kerosene. The silver was to carry away heat faster, I was told.

Also many years ago I sold a WW1 era Pratt & Whitney engine lathe, and replaced it with a Monarch 10EE. The Monarch could never give me the surface finishes that I could get with that old Pratt. Due I'm sure to the fact that the Pratt's plain journal bearings provided a degree of vibration damping that the rolling bearings in the Monarch couldn't match. Had to give up the Monarch a few years later, and now I make do with a rare WW2 South Bend 10" Heavy, which has plain journal bearings. By choice.

BTW another good book about machine tool history and development is A Short History of Machine Tools, by L.T.C. Rolt. M.I.T. Press. Out of print, but Amazon has a used copy.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...ools+mit+press

Also Wayne Moore's Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy. You can have mine when I'm dead. There's one on Amazon, asking price $5000!

[bob208]

the only difference between yesterday marching and today machining is to day it is faster.

it is called turning not lathing.

[uscra112]

Interesting factoid I noted as early as the late '80s: Machine tool structures aren't built as accurately as they used to be. Now they're built sloppy, and they let the computers make up for it. Japanese especially. Some brands are built so poorly that the mechanical parts won't outlive the software.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Yeah It had been a while since I read about Harrison. but even so the watches were alot closer than is normal today from Mechanical Watches other than Rolexes and some of the high end custom made ones from the Swiss.

The electronic timepieces are always dead on but seriously lack character. My I Phone is always right on, and in order to calibrate the Speedo on my Jeep I downloaded a GPS Speedo to the phone. It works pretty well and now I know where all my cars speedos are at.

My Seiko Watch has been running continuously since 1989 when my Wife bought it for me for my birthday. It could use a new crystal and an o-ring on the stem.

Randy

[country gent]

Speed comes from several things that are different now with modern machining. With the cnc 5 and 6 axis machining centers 1 or 2 fixtures do it all Not near as much parts changing or set up. Another is the carbide, diamond and modern tooling allows for faster feeds and speeds, The high speed steel on that area ran much slower rpms and feeds. Same with drills and taps. A cnc center may make 30 or 40 passes stepping over .010-.015 each pass at 30"-50" per min feed or more. The old mills were taking heavier passes but only 2-3" a min feed. Lathes doing thread with a good operator may have ran 100-200 rpm, a cnc center single pointing a thread will be at full machining speed for the size and material. Modern peck drilling cycles are much more efficient than the old ways.