WWII hand-powered lathe from Liberty Ship - photo

[Jon]

WWII hand-powered Paxton Mitchell lathe from a Liberty ship.



Description:

Hand Powered WWII Liberty Ship Metal Lathe made by Paxton Mitchell. These lathes were made in 1945. Came with the original paperwork. Each lathe comes with: (1) Packing Chuck for Boring 3 3/4 Packing. (1) Packing Chuck for Boring 1 5/8 Packing. (1) Spare Feed Nut. (2) Wrenches for Above. Wrenches are specific to the parts on the lathe. Weighs 154 pounds. New old stock. Never been used, but some surface rust from sitting around.

$300 from HarryEpstein.com: https://www.harryepstein.com/index.p...tal-lathe.html

Liberty ships were the iconic American WWII ship; over 2,700 of them were produced, which I believe is the most ships ever made to a single design. Liberty ships represented the American WWII manufacturing drive that formed the war-winning trinity of: American manufacturing, Russian lives, and British intelligence. These guys:



Does anyone know more about these lathes? Why were they hand-powered? Were these intended as general use lathes, or were they made with specific tasks in mind?



Previously:

video of WWII German military helmets repurposed into colanders
Leonardo da Vinci lathe build
WWII Churchill tank converted into mine clearer
Giant hedge cutter made from WWII AEC Matador

[mklotz]

It seems to be meant to perform a specific turning job (boring packing from the description), as opposed to a general purpose lathe. Liberty ships weren't expected to survive more that a couple of trans-Atlantic trips which might explain why they didn't want to "waste" scarce resources for a motor to power something that might (?) only see occasional use.

Actually, from its appearance, calling it a lathe seems to be something of a stretch. It looks more like a Cole drill adapted to boring specific sizes of packing.

[Frank S]

Liberty ships as with nearly all military navel vessels larger than landing craft possessed a full complement machine shop any hand operated tools such as the Paxton Mitchel would have been used for special purposes like boring out re-poured Babbitt bearing shells or making wooden bearings. The ads and other places mention the Paxton Mitchel as specifically having a packing bore chuck, which could have meant a multitude of things. We most commonly associate the term packing with materials used in a stuffing box around the propeller shaft but that would have probably been flax rope but there were stuffing boxes Babbitt bearings and wooden bearings used all over the vessels so this may have been used for a multitude of small tasks which did not warrant using the powered machines.

[Frank S]

Here is a photo of the machine shop aboard the John W brown liberty ship


Source Free Photo of The machine shop with tools aboard the SS John W. Brown

[mklotz]

The more I look at it , the more it looks like a Cole drill mechanism. The boring bar on the end, once adjusted for depth of cut, doesn't seem to have any mechanism for moving it into the work, presumably held in one of the collet like cups on the end of the shaft. This means that the shaft itself has to provide the feed motion.

Note the mechanism with the handle between the two shaft bearings. I can't tell from the photograph but it looks as if the section of the shaft under this mechanism is possibly threaded.

If it is, then the use would go something like this... Mount packing nut in suitably sized "packing chuck" on end of shaft. Adjust boring bar for depth of cut. Lift handle to disengage the "feed nut" from the threaded shaft and push shaft forward until packing nut contacts boring bar. Drop handle to engage feed nut with threaded shaft. Turning the handwheel will both revolve the packing nut against the boring bar as well as driving it forward as the threads on the shaft turn against the feed nut.

The fact that a "spare feed nut" is supplied with the unit further points to this concept of use.

[Jon]

Here's the huge fullsize image. 3,800px wide so you can see more details:

https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...e_fullsize.jpg

[Ron B]

Liberty Ships were all equiped with triple expansion Steam engines built by kaiser Frazer and with any large steam plant ,every pipe, every piston rod has a gland joint filled with asbestos square packing but paxton Mitchel were Steam engine builders from the late 1900's and had a mettalic packing of thier own desgn .This tool was used to trim the packing in spare gland nuts ,so this tool would see use on every voyage . The paxton Mitchell packing was popular but has been superceded completely today. The company also cast large parts for the steam engines and won several high awards including an E for getting three stars for excellence in a row. NWHS VG-1578C-VGN Mech Dwg

[Jon]

Here's one of those triple expansion steam engines:



Interestingly, over the 100+ years that Paxton Mitchell has been in business, they've ultimately moved to the production of "Snoopers":




More on Paxton Mitchell history:



More: Home Page - Paxton-Mitchell Co., LLC

[Frank S]

As the industry and machinery moves on so must a company If old man Henery Ford had had his way his famous Model T would have never been replaced with the Model A

[Shiseiji]

The item has been identified on other boards https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/...d.php?t=207138 as a PT Boat prop shaft packing cutter. I understand that operating in coral reef areas, a bent prop shaft wasn't unusual. How they straightened them I have no idea, but the tool was used to fit a new packing around the shaft.

During other discussions about the item, I learned that Liberty (and Victory) ships had a basic machine shop, a member of a group posted pictures of a Liberty Ship shop with a lathe and drill press. No idea how milling tasks were handled.

Ron