An ornamental turning lathe by Evans,

Details

An ornamental turning lathe by Evans,
No. 1261, signed on the headstock Evans & Son, London, with graduated iron bed on mahogany double frame with treadle gear, traversing mandrel headstock with six-row dividing plate, front and top-mounted indices, tangent screw and star-nut with six hobs, screw-barrel tailstock, hand-rest, ornamental slide rest with curvilinear attachment with twelve large, six small and miscellaneous other templates, slender rod turning attachment and overhead with two cranes and drum -- 80½in. (204cm.) high to top of overhead frame, 42½in. (108cm.) wide, centre height 6½in. (head and tailstocks with integral raising blocks), mandrel nose .7/8in. x 9.45 t.p.i.;
and a mahogany standing bookcase-form cabinet, in mahogany with ebony stringing, the upper tier with five adjustable mirror-backed shelves, the lower with two tiers of five graduated drawers enclosed by two doors with internal tool-racks -- 80½in. (204cm.) high, 49½in (126cm.) wide, containing:
long key with extension, boring collar, J.H.Evans adjustable protractor, long internal cutting frame, turner's square and Tee-square;
two-jaw and four-jaw faceplates, faceplate with various jaws and two spanners by Hines, six screw-hobs, approximately thirty brass chucks, two keys, two indices, two vertical cutting frames;
rectilinear, eccentric, oval and dome chucks, drill and cutter sockets, spiral apparatus with extra gears, reciprocater and Evans' 'additional arbor' for longer spirals (Evans fig. 169b);
thirty-one various work chucks, two s-c three-jaw chucks and a cup-chuck extractor;
(in lower tier) seventy-five hardwood-turning tools, mainly by Holtzapffel or Evans in door-racks, ten others in drawers, a box of spare handles, three pipe-borers, seventeen Holtzapffel thread-chasers (unhandled), three taps for various Holtzapfffel threads, ten division micrometers, a three-jaw s-c and a four-jaw chuck, curvilinear templates and follower, horizontal cutting frame, eccentric cutting frame with Grace balance, sliding tailstock centre for eccentric and oval turning, hollow-tube mandrel, small Tee-rest, twelve brass chuck-rings on lignum stand, fifty-one various cutters in two racks, various polishing cloths and other sundries; an Evans goniostat with three laps on board, three powder tins and a round-eged tool honing guide; and various wood samples, some worked, in tins
(a lot)

Lot Essay

A brass plaque on the front of the bed of this lathe reads, This Lathe received the Highest Award at the International health Exhibition, 1884. Maker J.H. Evans. A second plaque records that the lathe was 'Owned and cherished by S.G.Abell, Esq. 1946-1976'. S.G.Abell, a founder-member of the Society of Ornamental Turners, was co-author, with John Leggat and Warren Ogden Jr., of the Bibliography of The Art of Turning and Lathe and Machine Tool History, a standard work of reference normally referred to as ALO after its three authors.The 1884 International Health Exhibition was held in the Royal Albert Hall and its adjoining gardens (now lost).
The fact that the cabinet has apertures for fittings by Holtzapffel and even Hines suggests that it was acquired by an early owner, possibly at the same time as the lathe, for fitting out with his own choice of equipment. It is remarkably similar to the cabinet which accompanied the Holtzapffel lathe sold in these rooms in December 1996, except that the shelves are horizontal and adjustable, like those of a bookcase. A number of recesses are empty; most of the items listed as being in the upper tier in the above description, are in fitted recesses.

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