Beauties of the sixties
Beauties of the sixties
(OP)
There's something about the fifties and the sixties.
Cars were monsters, but many of them were also beautiful. I happen to live in a district where lots of people restore old "Yankies" and meet to show them to each other and to the broad public. It is a feast for your eyes.
On another plane - but similar - there are the huge electronic instruments of those days. The HP, Tektronix, B&K and many other makes of instruments. Built with a certain engineering aestetics and also with a "cost is no objective" philosophy with a lot of attention to details.
I have always admired those monsters. They may actually have contributed to my deep interest and involvment in electronics. I now try to keep a modest collection of such instruments - my heart can't see them go to the scrap heap. But, most of them have deteriorated. Screws and knobs missing, scratches. Dirt and ink marks that still wait for the ultimate detergent. Dents and broken plastic details. In short, not so beautiful any more.
And then - I found this Tek 575! Untouched, in its original box, with its original manual. Not a single screw missing. No dents. No ink markings. Pristine! Happiness!!
I just wanted you all to know - and share.
Cars were monsters, but many of them were also beautiful. I happen to live in a district where lots of people restore old "Yankies" and meet to show them to each other and to the broad public. It is a feast for your eyes.
On another plane - but similar - there are the huge electronic instruments of those days. The HP, Tektronix, B&K and many other makes of instruments. Built with a certain engineering aestetics and also with a "cost is no objective" philosophy with a lot of attention to details.
I have always admired those monsters. They may actually have contributed to my deep interest and involvment in electronics. I now try to keep a modest collection of such instruments - my heart can't see them go to the scrap heap. But, most of them have deteriorated. Screws and knobs missing, scratches. Dirt and ink marks that still wait for the ultimate detergent. Dents and broken plastic details. In short, not so beautiful any more.
And then - I found this Tek 575! Untouched, in its original box, with its original manual. Not a single screw missing. No dents. No ink markings. Pristine! Happiness!!
I just wanted you all to know - and share.
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...





RE: Beauties of the sixties
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
It is due to arrive here tomorrow. My wife has no concept of what I am so excited about but she is pleased for me anyway. It weighs roughly 2 tonnes; a modern Colchester of similar capacity weighs less than half that. It looks a little dated but the build quality is unmistakeable: a little piece of the engineering that once made England great. I can't wait to get it cleaned up and back to how it should look, then start using it.
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
http://www.gifford.co.uk/~coredump/oldsad.htm
RE: Beauties of the sixties
It's a Model 13 type B, roughly 6.5" C.H and 40" B.C. The tailstock must weigh 60lb alone. The bed is about 15" deep along the full length; I guess castings were cheaper then. I got a full set of collets from .25" to 1" in sixteenths too.
http://www.emcoaustralia.com/2ndhand/pdf/20089.pdf is a similar machine in your part of the world. The headstock is a little different - mine does not have the clutch lever at the right side of the headstock - and there are some detail changes to the saddle. I guess that is a slightly younger one. From the price Emco want for that machine I may have got a bargain.
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
RE: Beauties of the sixties
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
A good bath never hurt anybody or thing. We had to do this a few more times until the company came out with a new model with a tighter case.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
I usually go first in the tub, then wife, then children. And after that stable-master, gardener and other domestiques. We probably have to change that and let the 575 go first - when water is clean.
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
I'm curious as to how a scope from that era sat unused in its original carton?
Dan
RE: Beauties of the sixties
There is a school in the Swedish Navy (Berga Örlogsskolor) and they started a very ambitious project back in 1962 or 1963. This was during the coldest part of the cold war and Russia is right across the Baltic. So, cost was no concern. Lots of instruments were bought and course plans were set up.
It seems that someone bought "all" that could be had at that time. But the Tek 575 somehow never fit in the course plans and remained unused. The carton is rather dusty and with splashes of unknown origin, but the instrument, the accessories (transistor adapters) and the manual are in perfect condition. Mint.
I have powered it up. Those old instruments need to be woke up carefully. So I used a Variac to take voltage step by step over several hours. I have had bad experiences with electrolytic capacitors that didn't like being kicked wake after fourty+ years sleep and I try to avoid having aluminium foil all over the instrument.
It is a beuty. Even smells nice - that tube smell. Not dusty tube smell - just tube.
The base drive is a nice piece of engineering. Considering the technology available at that time. The "logic" is tube circuitry but the constant current drive stage has transistors. Tubes weren't a good choice when you need to deliver around 2.5 A DC.
No voltage "base drive". But, it is an easy matter to put a 1 kohms resistor parallel to the base drive and there you are! A voltage gate drive that goes all the way to around 12 V which is where the 15 V supply says enuff. So, I can run MOSFETs and IGBTs as well.
And - there's more - this instrument has the 1.5 kV option for break-down tests of diodes. Luvit!
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
RE: Beauties of the sixties
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
It may be a good thing that you didnt connect that old motor to an inverter. The insulation systems were not up to PWM back in the fifties. If you want to run it off a VFD, make sure you put a good filter between VFD and motor. Or use a sinewave output inverter.
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
RE: Beauties of the sixties
I am told I have been behaving like a kid on Christmas morning, getting up at strange times to work on my new machine. My wife has found me in the garage after 2300hrs, up to my eyes in oil and dirt and with no concept of how time is passing. Also my wife does not like the smell of old oil: I will be sleeping in the spare room (or in the garage) soon.
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
--------------------------------------
100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
I just rejoined my old solar car team...
and here's what I found lurking in the corner (sorry, obviously operated by pigs)
www.geocities.com/greglocock/holbrook.jpg
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Hmmm. I don't think it's been ever USED in its life.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
That's a beauty - looks in better cosmetic condition than mine. I've just spent a couple of days stripping the headstock and replacing some of the worn bearings and taking up wear on other places. I'm wondering whether to rename this thread 'Beasties of the Sixties' after the number of times my fingers got nipped! I had it turning over yesterday for the first time since I started overhauling it and it sounds much smoother since I replaced the broken oil pump and cleaned the hardened grease out of the bearings. I've managed to mis-align something in the feed gears for the lead and power shafts aren't operational at present, but it should be a quick enough job to sort out.
If you're ever scrapping yours I would be interested in the screwcutting changewheels. It is desperate times when I would consider shipping a hundred pounds of cast iron out of Australia!
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Beauties of the sixties
Preferably involving the nicest (imperial) screwcutting gearbox I've ever used. Man, I am out of practice.
On the little Myfords, the ways used to wear, I haven't really seen that on big lathes. I'm more used to Colchesters, which are built like tanks.
You've got a Rolls Royce. Yours has done a few miles, but, they are designed to be rebuildable. I'm sure Model Engineering has a hundred articles on refurbing old lathes. Scraping being a lost art...
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Beauties of the sixties
I'll strip the paint which has been badly applied some time in the previous 50-odd years and see about getting it back to a half-decent cosmetic condition, but not until the mechanical side of things is sorted out. At current rate of progress that may be next year!
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Beauties of the sixties