The flying lathes of the air corps

As a new owner of an old south bend lathe, as well as a lover of history, I've been doing some research lately and came across this ad, which I'm sure some of you are familiar with: https://books.google.com/books?id=f...a=X&ei=gta4VKOXM4fqggSBjoPwDA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA

But I've not been able to find much more info on these machines, I'd like to know more specifically the design details of the light weight cases that were built for these machines, and possibly what they were supplied with, though any other random information on them would also be appreciated, perhaps even some recorded incidents where they were actually used, though the scene depicted in the ad seems......well..slightly far fetched, it really looks to me more like a machinist's idea of a vacation lol (mine too!)

I do have some interest in possibly building a copy of the case/bench for my lathe, I'm playing with the idea in my head right now while considering where to mount it when I get to that point.

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the antique machinery and history section so mods if you need to move it please do so.

thermite said:

I do not know when the US Gov "Federal Stock Number" AKA FSN, and now "National Stock Number" aka "NSN", came into being, nor the "Standard Noun Nomenclature" that might have said:

LATHE, Metal turning, with threading, .. Type 1, Class, 1, one-each etc.. .

If you care to research it, you will almost certainly find the FSN for the 'shop-truck' mounted lathes that I HAVE seen in use - Long Binh, RVN, late 1960's.

And ... if even ONE of the older lathes you seek still existed in inventory as at the time the FSN system came into being, there would have been an FSN assigned to it.

Keep in mind that the Air Force was the "Army Air Corps" until 1947, so it would have been Army goods, and perhaps under Ordnance rather than Air arm.

Slim lead. But you may find meat on that bone ...

Bill

Click to expand...

FSN predates me by some decades. I checked Google because I thought the NSN was introduced in the 60s due to the computerization of stock control. Looks like it post dated it.

Wikipedia...

"A Federal Stock Number (FSN) was an 11-digit numeric code. It was first used by the Defense Munitions Board's Cataloging Agency in 1949 to identify items in the Joint Army-Navy Catalog System. The Federal Stock Number was used officially from 1953 to 1974, when it was replaced by the National Stock Number. The conversion from FSN to NSN was typically done by adding "00" between the first set of numbers (the Federal Supply Class, or FSC) and the second set of numbers."
NATO Stock Number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rusty -

Bill and Mike have given you the place to start. I'll give you a couple more ideas.

I acquired a SB lathe that just had it's 70th birthday last week a while ago. I put a thread on here as it is in great shape - was originally in an Army mobile machine shop. The SB card (which I sprung for) lists it as having 'special angle iron clips welded to back of bench for wall fastening' when built. As it has a rather rare 5 drawer cabinet with cutout plywood to shadow the accessories (in each drawer) and a fitted box to hold the chucks - and is pretty complete, I set out to try and find documentation on what was missing.

I did some searching on line and found some WWII military history types that collect old equipment and documentation. Managed to figure out it might have been part of one of about 6 different machine shop configurations, shop mounted. I spent 33 years in the Army, most of it reserve components and figured out the old documents I was looking for as it is a system I worked in. Contacted the Ordnance Corps museum - which since the branch schools were consolidated several years ago is actually all in storage, but still has a skeleton staff. Turns out then have shelves full of old WWII documentation - but not the specific ones I was looking for! At this point I'm at a dead end, but sill spend some of these cold nights looking some more on the web and might come up with something.

Another thing I should mention. SB made the lathes but they then went to other places / companies to be assembled into the 'set' or whatever. My lathe went to General Tire and Rubber in Huntington, WV - they must have assembled the shop van I am guessing at this point.

Only reason I'm telling the story is to let you know it might well be a maze to find what you are looking for. Could be out there somewhere. If I were you I'd start by contacting the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio - I know they have a web site. Trouble is, support items like what you and I are looking for don't make it to the history books and so not as much saved out there as compared to hardware that actually 'did the job' in actual combat. Which, in the greater scheme of things, sort of makes sense from the point of how many people might be interested in something. Plus, as has been mentioned, the Air Force was not a separate branch until 1947 and shared a lot with the Army in terms of how things were done on the logistical side of the house - and with some strange arrangements as to who handled certain items.

Good luck with your search and let us know how you make out.

Dale

I suspect there would be old Army Air Corps technical manuals that would describe the use, care and maintenance for this mobile shop tool South Bend Lathe and parts manuals listing the "accessories for doing a variety of work that would surprise you." It could have some accessories not normally seen in a South Bend Lathe Works catalog. If you do some digging and contact museums that specialize in that time period and equipment, I think you'll hit the jackpot.

Here are two other WWII military usage ads.





Here is a link to a 1935 catalog "Interesting Installations of South Bend Lathes". http://wewilliams.net/docs/1935 - Interesting Installations of South Bend Lathes - Book 71.pdf

Vlad

Don't believe everything you see in ad's.The Army Air Forces,as they were re-designated as prior to the war,probably wouldn't of wasted the time and manpower of airlifting a lathe to a remote location to repair a single aircraft. They would of cannibalized it for spare parts and let the airframe where it lay.That is probably why you see an artist rendition of said lathe instead of actual photograph

The Army generally provides tooling in "sets" to apply to whatever unit activities need to be supported. It is not out of the question that such a set of tooling would be designed and provided for air transportation, or "organic transport". It is far more plausible to imagine that an aviation unit would join up with their support equipment upon, or shortly after the aircraft arrived at their duty stations. Units that were required to move often were provided with trucks and other vehicles capable of moving all support equipment in one big hop. As noted above, if the Army had something, they wrote a manual for it. The search for it may be lots of fun. Regards, Clark

In general, the Army has four levels of maintenance: Organizational, Direct Support, General Support and Depot. Organizational level support is or was organic to the combat unit and moves or deploys with the combat assets. My Army combat aviation company (UH-1H helicopters) had an aviation maintenance platoon as organizational level support for two flight platoons. The aviation maintenance platoon had a 9" or 10K South Bend Lathe as organizational equipment. That was in the early 1980s. Direct Support and General Support aviation maintenance units likely had lathes as well, because they are higher levels of maintenance with more capabilities than organizational level maintenance. So, I think it's very likely the Army Air Corps had South Bend Lathes organic to their organizational level support that could be transported as shop equipment for recovery maintenance operations as required.

Looks like there is a ton of different info out there, it's just a matter of digging through all the sites.

5th Maintenance Bn

GMC_Ordnance_Maintenance_Truck

Ohio Mike said:

FSN predates me by some decades. I checked Google because I thought the NSN was introduced in the 60s due to the computerization of stock control. Looks like it post dated it.

Wikipedia...

"A Federal Stock Number (FSN) was an 11-digit numeric code. It was first used by the Defense Munitions Board's Cataloging Agency in 1949 to identify items in the Joint Army-Navy Catalog System. The Federal Stock Number was used officially from 1953 to 1974, when it was replaced by the National Stock Number. The conversion from FSN to NSN was typically done by adding "00" between the first set of numbers (the Federal Supply Class, or FSC) and the second set of numbers."
NATO Stock Number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Click to expand...

More info.............. FSN numbers did not change when the NSN system was adopted. What did happen is that two digits were simply added after the 4 digit stock class. Those two digits represent the nation of manufacture, IE. 00 = the US, 01 = Germany etc. The NSN system is now used throughout the NATO alliance.

Back in the 70's I bought one of those shop trailers through DRMO. These trailers did not have special machines, just small standard machines. My trailer had a small 10" Sheldon lathe and a bench top SB shaper. They were nice, hardly used machines, but terribly limited by their size.

Just in case some of you haven't seen these photos I posted a while back, here's a link:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/more-vintage-photos-166581/

Ted

Not sure about other branches but the Navy has had machine shops aboard ship since who knows how long.
Here is a link to a mobile machine shop, Army I guess.

http://galleryplus.ebayimg.com/ws/web/360253931864_1_0_1/1000x1000.jpg

Another Army mobile machine shop:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Mobile_Machine_Shop_US_Army_England.jpg

I bought from surplus a drafting machine which was missing a couple of critical parts. In trying to locate info on it I discovered that when the Navy ordered such items there might not be a standard of production of the machines acquired by the branch which ordered them. They might be pulled from a production line or storage and marked for the branch or division and no documentation of specifics recorded for a device such as the drafting machine I have. That puzzled me as the machine has military markings on it in several places but no available documentation was recorded that I could find. The data may have been destroyed after the war was concluded. But the MFG had no info on it.
Not sure how lathe makers handled orders for those machines. I have seen war production board plaques on machines over my career in machining but those were added by a gov. agency not the mfg'r. The drafting machine I have has Navy and some other military designations on it which look more like engraved during production rather than later. With no way to ID what is missing and no parts #'s or drawings of the missing my machine is useless junk. But the box it came in is still nice.

Nice pics Ted I don't know where they are from but the first image is a total photoshop fake as a photographer they are not hard to spot lol the ribbing inside doesn't match the ribbing outside the hole in the fuselage isn't square and resolution and lighting for the lathe itself is different from the image of the outside of the airframe. Also look at the scale of the drawers in the cabinet with the men outside.If those are 24" drawers then all those men only had 30" shoulders lol The second 2 pics are real and the machinery is level to the floor of the aircraft,why then in the first pic is the lathe level with the ground and not with the slope of the aircraft as it is sitting on the ground?

SBLatheman said:

Just in case some of you haven't seen these photos I posted a while back, here's a link:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/more-vintage-photos-166581/

Ted

Click to expand...