Typical, isn’t it. The internet is full of pictures, but not the ones you are looking for.

There’s this famous picture of a capstan lathe in use in WWII from the Library of Congress:

Trouble is, most of the stations on the turret are empty – and there’s nothing being machined!

Still, nice picture…

Richard

No idea. There must be lots of little turned bits in a Merlin, generally many of them the same e.g. (and I’m pretty sure these were not made on a capstan lathe) big end bolts

Richard

I never realised that.

Mark

If you want control, speed and repeatability – let the machine do the clever stuff. IIRC capstan lathe operators were only classified as semi-skilled at the most. The toolsetter was the person with the skills

Richard

This speculation about Ford / Rolls-Royce engine ‘tolerances’ comes-up every time these two manufacturers are mentioned. While I’m sure there is some truth at the root of it we have to ask what benefit there was to (say) Ford engines being ‘better made’.

Did ‘tighter tolerances’ improve the power output of the Ford engines? Did they make them more reliable? More fuel efficient? Anybody?

Did ‘tighter tolerances’ make Ford engines cheaper to make? Did they make production of them faster? Were less parts rejected? Anybody?

Because if none of the above was true what exactly is the benefit of ‘tighter tolerances’ on Ford engines?

There is a bit of an assumption there – that Ford applied tighter tolerances. It may be that they applied more consistent tolerancing, or maybe looser tolerances in non critical areas, or perhaps standards more appropriate to mass production. Any of these could have reduced the scrap rate and got more engines produced

Richard

Hardly worth viewing then ! If it doesnt take peoples perception of human decency to an even lower level its certainly not worth posting a link to it here!

So, this thread should have no pictures? No videos? No descriptions of the accident?

Richard

Churchill approves

Richard

{that is an RAF uniform, isn’t it?}

Appears to be some confusion about CoG & inertia etc in this thread…. 😉

Where though, is it me? I thought I understood this, but apparently I’m supposed to ‘deal with’ something else although I’ve not heard this explained properly

Richard