[HN Gopher] A small lathe built in a Japanese prison camp
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A small lathe built in a Japanese prison camp
Author : CommieBobDole
Score : 241 points
Date : 2024-04-28 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lathes.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lathes.co.uk)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| One of the pages is missing. I wonder whether anyone has a copy
| of it?
| card_zero wrote:
| Yes, it's here:
|
| https://archive.org/details/machinistsbedsid0000laut/page/15...
| avhon1 wrote:
| Indeed, 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
|
| edit: the book is also currently in print, and can be purchased
| new on Amazon for $50 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953439063
| class3shock wrote:
| Wow, as someone that loves vintage machine tools and owns a
| Monarch 10EE (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 wrote:
| Nice 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 wrote:
| Sounds 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 wrote:
| Taiwanese 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 wrote:
| Heh 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!
| navane wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| As 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...
| MeteorMarc wrote:
| Yeah, social engineering for establishing a workshop!
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| For an extended read, you may try "King Rat" by James Clavell -
| same author of the current hit show "Shogun".
|
| The book is set in the same Changi PoW camp where the author
| was held during WWII. The character Lieutenant-Colonel Larkin
| is based off Lieutenant-Colonel E. E. "Weary" Dunlop who was
| the real life surgeon using these tools for creating artificial
| limbs amongst other things and whom Clavell knew and presumably
| Bradley too.
|
| It's not exactly a cheery read but very much an inspiring one
| in terms of survival, ingenuity, and moral complexity.
| navane wrote:
| Thanks, I've read it, don't remember the lathe in it. Awesome
| book. So much better than shogun or any of his other works
| from his "trader series".
|
| I recommend King Rat to people who need to get back in to
| reading books.
| teshigahara wrote:
| I find it hard to believe that they copied the word for
| workshop (presumably Gong Fang ) convincingly enough that it
| wasn't obviously written by someone without any understanding
| of how to actually write the language. It's extremely obvious
| when someone tries to copy Chinese characters without any
| understanding of stroke order, stroke pressure, etc. The way
| that someone would show how a character looks to someone
| without any knowledge (ie textbook form) and how they would
| naturally write such a sign is also different. You would be
| able to tell instantly that a non-native prisoner wrote it.
|
| Actually, signs were also written right-to-left horizontally
| during that period but it's likely that someone showing them
| how to write on a piece of paper would have written vertically,
| so they would probably not even have the knowledge to know the
| correct order of the text.
| iaseiadit wrote:
| If all signs in the prison camp were written right-to-left
| instead of vertically, they probably would have noted that
| before creating the sign. Especially considering their lives
| depended on it.
| simonh wrote:
| For handwriting sure, but print characters as for a sign
| would be easier.
| brazzy wrote:
| How would they print a sign?
| eszed wrote:
| And yet it worked....
|
| Your knowledge of Japanese orthography gives you an
| interesting perspective. I'd be fascinated to know, given the
| obstacles you note, how exactly the prisoners overcame them.
| Did they have someone in the camp with basic knowledge of
| Chinese orthography? Did someone know enough to note
| carefully the way in which the characters were written? Did
| they keep the paper with the characters on it, and then hand-
| reproduce the precise structure? Were the guards generally
| illiterate, and therefore not notice the errors? All of those
| would be spurs to further research, which your reflexive
| dismissal of the premise would preclude. An open-minded
| approach to historical texts usually generates more-
| interesting questions and answers than a closed one.
| nxicvyvy wrote:
| Or do the guards just not want to speak out of line or
| question their superiors. Or do the guards all know but
| don't care because things are being fixed up around the
| place. Or are all the signs in the camp created by
| prisoners?
|
| So much is unknown about the situation to make the claims
| made above.
| icambron wrote:
| An alternative possibility is that many other the signs
| around the camp were made by prisoners over the normal
| course of their labor and thus this one did not need to
| hide its authorship. The deception is in acting like it was
| always there and was supposed to be, not in pretending its
| was physically written by an official.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| It's a prisoner of war camp. All the signs are made by
| prisoners.
| peteradio wrote:
| An awesome demonstration of the ability towards ingenuity when
| one is not trying to get laid.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Instead, they were trying to get _lathed_.
|
| I'll see myself out.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| When your bed is true and all is aligned, you can hope to get
| a little tailstock?
| class3shock wrote:
| If nothing else it'll help you tap a hole properly.
| tejtm wrote:
| BORING
| peteradio wrote:
| BOROI OI OI OING
| huytersd wrote:
| That 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 wrote:
| When Diogenes was reproached for public indecency, he replied
| "if I could get rid of hunger by rubbing my belly, I'd do
| that too"
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| giga_chad.jpg
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Christ what is going on here
| burcs wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| These lathes?
|
| https://www.crozierspeedlathes.com/
|
| 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 wrote:
| Aerospace, 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.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I wonder if there's any resource that shows how to build all
| these tools from scratch. What would it take to bootstrap
| manufacturing?
| qup wrote:
| You'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_ wrote:
| Depending on how far you want to go, you might like to read The
| Knowledge by Dartnell. It covers smelting, etc.
| miohtama wrote:
| Unrelated to excellent article content, do we have today an AI
| solution to enhance the quality and readability of scanned PDFs?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It doesn't necessarily need to be AI, it could be a simple
| filter, etc
| gield wrote:
| OCR has been around for a few decades by now:
| https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| I'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.
| iaseiadit wrote:
| Some photos from the camp here:
| 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
|
| A wireless set hidden in the sole of a prisoner's sandals:
| https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C14187
| gwern wrote:
| Made a PDF with the missing page:
| https://gwern.net/doc/cs/security/1949-bradley.pdf
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(page generated 2024-04-28 23:00 UTC)