Heavy facing lathe, 1810.

This front-operating facing lathe was used from 1845 until 1975 at the Charlestown Foundry, St Austell, Cornwall. It was built at a time when developments in engineering required larger, more strongly built machine tools than had previously existed. The lathe worked by means of a rotating drive which turned the piece being worked on against changeable cutting tools and was best suited to machining large wheels, pistons, and similar shaped castings. It is shown in the East Hall gallery at the Science Museum, London, c 1990.