Mesta Roll Lathe

We have just purchased a Mesta Lathe S/N 6-113 and were wondering if anyone knew where we might purchase manuals for this piece of equipment.

For the love of god please post pictures, can't help on the manuals though ...

Since it was likely made for themselves, likely rare or non-existent.
Joe

Here is a Mesta catalog. Internet Archive: Error

It is unlikely that any manuals were ever printed.

jdavi581 said:

Since it was likely made for themselves, likely rare or non-existent.
Joe

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The catalog is clear that they made roll lathes for sale.

Larry

I stand corrected. I always thought they were more of a custom builder.

Thanks. That is what I'm beginning to think also.

EngineBill, thanks for that Mesta catalog, gotta love the really big stuff! Imagine, a steam engine with 81" bore low pressure cylinder.

enginebill said:

Here is a Mesta catalog. Internet Archive: Error

It is unlikely that any manuals were ever printed.

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There would more likely have been a filing cabinet drawer - or several - of correspondence, specifications, customizations and price negotiations, work-in-process inspections, client staff training / familiarization, progress reports and final test results as exchanged between Mesta Machine and each client for any given product. Their cost and service life made Mesta's goods a significant capital expenditure - practically a 'project' - for even a major steel company. Same again with transport and installation.

Enough material would have accumulated to have created a 'manual', but doubtful that was specifically done.

More probable the client had their own staff create a machine-specific operating & lube procedure with distilled do's and don'ts.

Side-note, but a number of Mesta's heavy-hitters went to the Soviet Union under WWII 'lend-lease'. The Sovs reputedly torched the Mesta name off the castings and welded-on plates claiming them as Russian-made goods.

Bill

Monarchist said:

There would more likely have been a filing cabinet drawer - or several - of correspondence, specifications, customizations and price negotiations, work-in-process inspections, client staff training / familiarization, progress reports and final test results as exchanged between Mesta Machine and each client for any given product. Their cost and service life made Mesta's goods a significant capital expenditure - practically a 'project' - for even a major steel company. Same again with transport and installation.

Enough material would have accumulated to have created a 'manual', but doubtful that was specifically done.

More probable the client had their own staff create a machine-specific operating & lube procedure with distilled do's and don'ts.

Side-note, but a number of Mesta's heavy-hitters went to the Soviet Union under WWII 'lend-lease'. The Sovs reputedly torched the Mesta name off the castings and welded-on plates claiming them as Russian-made goods.

Bill

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Hi Bill, I don't know wether the torching off story is true but the company I served my time at in the UK did a similar thing. On the production machinery all the small makers names were angle ground off and on the large ones they were either removed completely or if that wasn't possible, covered over with sheet metal cover plates.

I know because I fitted quite a few. The rationale was to prevent visitors to the site knowing where to buy similar machines to set up in competition.

On the subject of roll turning lathes. In my experience the feeds and speeds are significantly slower than standard lathes of roughly the same size.

Regards Tyrone.

jdavi581 said:

I stand corrected. I always thought they were more of a custom builder.

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The distinction blurs with any seriously large and / or expensive item. They aren't built to go onto shelves at Walmart or HF to await a buyer's passing fancy.

Modern example might be Boeing or Airbus. They design a 'standard' aircraft, but do so in cooperation with those who will become the major customers so it meets the needs of their routes and passenger environment. Then they seek firmer commitments as to how many, over what period of time, and in what configuration will be purchased. Prices are negotiated.

Not enough commitment, the design is either changed or even dropped altogether.

Once build begins, engine choices, seat arrangements, training packages, and much more remain customer-specific choices.

Not EVERYTHING Mesta did was that 'special', or even super-large.

They mass-produced heavy naval rifles and more 'routine' Army artillery to standard designs of others, for example. Iverson was not the only brilliant mind under-roof, so improvements in methods if not design may have been part of that package.

Standardized or no, armaments were not built in advance for a "dealer showroom", either. No contract, no start.



Bill

I like the stories of hiding maker's plates, etc.

Mom used to tell of the stamping plant putting up curtains to shield one automaker's visitors from seeing the others processes.

There must be a book of the history of protecting intellectual property, business secrets, industrial espionage, etc. Perhaps that's the next book I buy?

I worked for a short while at the " Vickers " tank factory in Leeds a good few years back.

One of the guys there told me that just prior to the outbreak of the 1939-45 war a small team of Italians were installing a large double sided Hor bore in the factory.

As things took a nasty turn and war looked inevitable the site of the machine was screened by tarpaulins and their route through the factory was also made into a tunnel of tarpaulins. Later on the Italians were under armed guard.

Years later I did quite a bit of work for " Stanko " the importer of machinery from the Soviet Union. If you wanted a visit from the Russian service engineers they had to give MI 5 three days notice of their visit and the route they intended to take.

Regards Tyrone.

SteveBausch said:

I like the stories of hiding maker's plates, etc.

Mom used to tell of the stamping plant putting up curtains to shield one automaker's visitors from seeing the others processes.

There must be a book of the history of protecting intellectual property, business secrets, industrial espionage, etc. Perhaps that's the next book I buy?

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Let us know if you find such a book!

Meanwhile, odd tidbits..

Britain's legendary Long Range Desert Group operating in North Africa discovers a Chevrolet truck can go about 30% further on a given amount of fuel than a Ford truck.

Henry & Edsel Ford are being awarded cash and the Third Reich's equivalent of 'E' for effort for the Ford trucks rolling off the assembly lines of the captured Ford plant kept operational in occupied France.

Allies don't seem to bomb that factory much.

Was it because they loved Hitler/Mussolini-fan Henry enough to preserve his property?

Or because someone figured the higher the percentage of thirsty Ford trucks the Third Reich had to operate, the less scarce fuel there would be for Panzers and Focke-Wulf's?

"The World Wonders"



Bill

Monarchist:

The complicity of multi-national corporations and governments during wartime is a whole 'nother topic. Multinational corporations had plants on both sides of a conflict, and stood to profit from both sides of that conflict, almost regardless of outcome. Opel, the German car maker, was a division of GM, or GM owned significant stock in Opel. Either way, Opel- who was making vehicles and equipment for the German military- was off the list of strategic targets for allied bombing raids. IBM was even worse. Prior to WWII, the German government set up some kind of bogus offices in various countries, ostensibly as "trade missions" or somesuch. In actuality, they were gathering the demographic data for the holocaust, and putting that data on IBM punch cards using IBM equipment. In countries like Roumania, Albania, Hungary, etc, the German government had these bogus offices set up, equipped with IBM's latest and greatest. All sorts of data was collected as to demographics of the Jewish populations, industries, resources, and anything else that might have been of use to the Reich. When WWII did break out and when the USA did get into it, these same agencies needed service and additional IBM equipment. Watson, of IBM, knew damned well what was going on, or at least that the USA was now officially at war with Germany. He had no problem in dealing through Switzerland to provide whatever was needed to collect and access data on anything from how many Jews inhabited a given town, what their ages and occupations were, or how many hectares of land and what crops were sowed, or what industries were there. Once WWII broke out, the pretense of having "trade missions" was no longer needed by the Reich, and the real titles and purposes of these agencies was made known. Working through Switzerland, IBM had no problem in supporting these agencies.

Similarly, various firms within Germany that were multinational were also on the "do not bomb list" although they were clearly engaged in production of war materiel. I.G Farben and Bayer come to mind as some of these firms, as do some of the bearing manufacturers.

As for Henry Ford, he was an early supported or Adolf Hitler. Hitler had Ford's photo in his offices when Hitler was just starting his political ascent. Ford gave a lot of financial support to Hitler. Ford like Hitler's policies, and it was only when the US got into WWII that he had to drop his ideas of supporting Hitler.

Multinational - or as we now say "global"- corporations have no scruples or loyalty to anything but their own bottom line. If they have holdings in countries on both sides of a conflict, it is kind of like the guys who go to the track and bet their money "across the board" to "cover their bets". If WWII was any example of this sort of thing, with the advent of computers and information technology being what it is, global corporations will only increase this sort of thing.
Look at where the US Defense Industry is at. Continental Engine division, which builds tank engines for the US Military, is now owned by a company in People's Republic of China. The division of General Electric which made the Lexan, some of which being used in composite armor on the Abrams tank, is now owned by the Saudis. IBM's manufacturing end is being sold off to Global Foundries- a company which never poured a metal casting and never will. Global Foundries is a front for an investment group out of Abu Dhabi or somesuch place. If the web of complicity across the lines between combative nations was tangled during WWII, it is now infinitely more tangled thanks to the computers making possible the huge juggernauts of global corporations.

Corporations are what they are, and the ethics or morality of a lot of what they do is not of any real importance to them, despite their fancy mission statements. Their only loyalty is to the bottom line. In the Spanish American War, the grim irony was supposedly more US troops died from eating spoiled/poison canned rations than enemy bullets. The meat packing trusts saw to it that stuff that would kill a dog was passed by inspectors and canned for consumption by US troops. In WWI, it was the explosives manufacturers who worked both sides of the conflict. WWII was more of the same with automakers, bearing makers, and chemical companies to name a few. Not much had changed, and things see to be going from bad to worse with the "globalization". As I said, I liken it to the wise guys at the horse tracks who "bet across the board" so that they cover their bets and are assured a winner. The problem is when dealing with populations of people and military personnels' lives, it is not so innocent a proposition as the wide guys at the track are up against. I am a dinosaur of an engineer and machinist, and I suppose as the years pass, I get older and more cynical and see more of the stark reality of how the world and the "system" within it operates.

Joe Michaels said:

I suppose as the years pass, I get older and more cynical and see more of the stark reality of how the world and the "system" within it operates.

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Ye'd be more cynical yet if you had been in eyeball to eyeball contact with some of the players.

But there is a positive side to it as well.

Big Corp NOW knows it needs consumer-level customers to be alive, healthy, able to afford their products, keep transport, inch-hoorance, and other parasitic costs down.

Big Gov realizes they have never, and will never have the resources to fully control a population.

Ergo for every pol or megabuckster that wants war, there are a hundred pols and megabucksters that do not.

China doesn't want to lose US or EU markets, nor the products - even if mostly foodstuffs - they buy in exchange, nor the sea-passage to move goods in either direction. US or EU don't want to lose cheap imports, nor the large population of China as a market for their exports.

Much the same with the rest of the world.

I see 'globalization' working more for the better than otherwise.

Even if only by accident...



Bill

Monarchist said:

China doesn't want to lose US or EU markets, nor the products - even if mostly foodstuffs - they buy in exchange, nor the sea-passage to move goods in either direction. US or EU don't want to lose cheap imports, nor the large population of China as a market for their exports. Bill

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Change the names and essentially the same could be said, and was said, regarding the interdependence of world economies as a deterrent to war in 1914. In contrast, by the late 1930s the average dockworker could wisecrack that the scrap steel being loaded for Japan was sooner or later going to come back as shrapnel, which of course it did. Does that mean that his generation was more cynical than his father's? Almost certainly, and in Britain probably twice as much. Now we haven't seen a real, general-mobilization war in several generations and we have no collective memory of the falling dominoes, and we are not nearly as cynical as we perhaps ought to be. What form would the Sudetenland take today, anyway? Ukraine? The Spratly Islands? While the civilized world is probably constrained to some degree by economic considerations, I doubt the Norks, or an Islamic State in control of present-day Pakistan's nuclear weapons would feel any more constrained than Austria-Hungary was after the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, and neither of those actors would give two shits about the shared ownership and supranational interests of global corporations. But perhaps we'll be able to rely on President Hillary shrugging off another 9-11 with another "What difference does it make?" and peace will continue to reign, and Walmart will continue to stock its shelves.

It occurs to me that Mesta probably didn't do too badly during the years leading up to the publication of that catalog!

Oldwrench said:

It occurs to me that Mesta probably didn't do too badly during the years leading up to the publication of that catalog!

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And again WWII & the Korean War.

Pittsburgh press, 1974:

Mill Rolls Mill rolls are one of the most used and important products in the metal producing industries. For instance, the current heavy demand for steel strip on third generation hot strip mills, coupled with extremely fast roll-changing capabilities, can, in some cases, mean usage of up to 40 sets of work rolls per eight-hour turn in the seven-finishing stands of a hot strip mill. New rolls are used to insure quality control of every grade and size of prime surface strip. Mesta Machine Co. is unique in that it is the only fully integrated roll supplier and mill builder.

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Then.... times changed.

Heavy, heavy industry and the steel mills began to wind-down new purchases, then maintenance. Then everything, Pittsburgh, Ohio.. etc.

World's largest foundry was no longer busy. George's grandson or grand-nephew - and my HS classmate and fellow 'hot-rodder' - went on to build on what HE was interested in. An automobile dealership.

Bill

Monarchist said:

Let us know if you find such a book!

Bill

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Well......

Many of these titles include "China", nowadays:

CRC Press book search: espionage - Page 1
Just a starting point.

Security Management from CRC Press - Page 1

How to Protect Your Manufacturing Business from Intellectual Property Theft -

I suspect the bibliography in these books is quite intriguing.

SteveBausch said:

Well......

Many of these titles include "China", nowadays:

CRC Press book search: espionage - Page 1
Just a starting point.

Security Management from CRC Press - Page 1

Click to expand...

Sheesh. Whole new generation of youngsters have come along. Think I'll sit this one out and play with Old iron....