Every object owned, or was owned, by the Yarloop Workshops has or had a story. Sadly most of these stories are were not recorded. If you can help provide or add to these stories we would greatly appreciate it. The lathes are a case in point.
No engineering workshop would be complete without a means of shaping metal. I’ve already written about the blacksmiths, the pattern makers, the moulders and the smelting. For more detailed and accurate work objects have to go to the fitters and turners.
This section of the Workshops where these workers practised their skills housed a variety of machines. Back in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, and into the Twentieth Century when our Workshops operated, the steam driven machines usually had single functions. They were each operated by a person who was skilled in that machine. To cut slots in steel there were separate vertical slotting machines and horizontal slotting machines, each operated by their own skilled worker. These machines were located at the centre of the northern end of the workshop together with a large radial arm drill. All of them, on inspection after the fire, had little damage and were quite capable of being restored. Most disappeared in the clean-up.
Of greater flexibility were the lathes. These, perhaps as a result of their size and weight, survived the Fire and the clean-up. In the Fitters and Turners section of the Workshops they, with a couple of exceptions, were placed along the wall below the Oregon pine-framed windows. They enabled work of high precision to be carried out by skilled operators.
We still have five such metal lathes. Two of these are 22 feet (6.7m) long and they probably date back to the early years of the Millars’ operation in WA. One of these is certainly an early resident of the Workshops. Among the lathes is one referred to as the ‘Rolls Royce of Lathes’, a Dean, Smith and Grace lathe that was made in 1914. We believe that this came from the Midland Workshops and was fully restored by two men who worked there. In its restored state it was probably worth thousands of dollars. All but one of the lathes, we understand, were operable before the Fire. One of the large lathes was broken in two during a shift some time in the past.
Sadly these high precision machines have sat out in the weather since 2016.[1]
The Dean, Smith and Grace lathe in its present location.
The restored Dean, Smith and Grace lathe (Right Bottom) with the other machines in the Fitters part of the Main Workshop. The large lathe is centre left.
The large lathe in its present location.
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[1] From ‘The Phoenix Rises Very Slowly’ Part 22, by Allan Ward.