Honor Box vendor

[gameswat]

Just picked up this grandfather of all Penny Machines from the states a month ago. Dates circa 1800 - 1820 for vending a pinch of tobacco or possibly snuff. First one I've had so planned to keep it around awhile but due to an urgent need for cash I had it sold the day after it arrived! Has taken a decent amount of tinkering to get it back to nice working condition. The feet and corners of the case had been poorly re-soldered many years ago and I had to carefully remove the old solder from just those areas and delicately twist the case square again. The machine didn't work due to everything being out of plumb all over the place. I cleaned the joints back to bare brass and tried vintage lead solder but just would not lay down a smooth bead. I ended up using my modern electrical solder as this flowed beautifully into the joints. I removed all the feet as they'd been poorly soldered, but they needed to be off to help panel beat the base to straighten the case anyway. Two of the feet had worn at odd angles due to the buckled corners so they needed brass plate soldering onto them to build the height back, then filing back into shape. And I had to make two new left and right hand springs to lift that lid open. The originals just wouldn't hold tension for more than a handful of uses before they sagged. Was able to build a simple and quick jig for my lathe to allow me to form new springs with the correct gauge spring steel wire from the local hobby store. Took a few hours of messing around to get them made and installed. And check out that amazingly basic lock!? It only needs a tube with a slot cut in the end to screw it open and shut. At first I thought the keyhole shaped opening was about tricking the unscrupulous into thinking they needed a real key? But once I converted an antique key for the job I found it's designed to screw in until the key stops perfectly upright and pulls straight out. But when fully unlocked the key ends upside down, so I think this was to stop the operator from accidently leaving the cashbox unlocked?
One of the attractions for me to buy this particular example was the fact it had never been overly polished. I was careful to clean it only lightly so the patina is still all there in the metal. I used a rust convertor with a soft rag, which took awhile but just removed the tarnishing slowly. Then eventually when it was all repaired I just gave it the lightest polish with Brasso you could imagine. Can't stand to see old machines that have been machine polished as just ruins them for me. Has been fun to work on the oldest machine I've ever dealt with. cheers

[gameswat]

Was just out lathing parts and decided I could easily re-enact making the Honor lid springs to show how it's done in case anybody cares? For many years my lathe was just a drill held in a vice and that works ok for smaller spring making until you start getting into thick wire. As long as your drill has slower speeds. The former here is just a scrap piece of steel rod with a hole drilled in the end to lock the wire in place, I bent the wire around to hold it from pulling out at the beginning. Then just ground that end wire off to remove afterwards. The guide to keep the wire centered is just a scrap piece of L shaped flat bar that already had holes in it. Bolted it in the place a cutter would normally fit on the tool post. I hand wound the chuck for the first two revolutions to start it off, then with the lathe on slowest setting of 60 rpm I found it was easy to wind the tool post forward to match the speed the spring was forming. But the trick was to keep the wire feeding slightly behind the front of the spring, this keeps it very tight, otherwise the wire can loosen up and you won't have a nice tight spring - as can be seen near the end of my practice attempt in these photos! To make the other mirror imagine spring it was just a case of reversing the lathe motor and doing exactly the same. The wire disappears really quickly so I ended up with two trips to the hobby shop in short succession! I think I spent 2 pounds on wire to make the two springs but there were off cuts leftover as each spring used just over half the metre lengths.

[john t peterson]

My poor Auto Talkie weeps with envy.

Spectacular work, Gameswat.

J Peterson
Honoring your handiness from America

[youngerap]

This is fantastic. I am truly impressed by the two hundred years old coin-op device, but much more so at the display of skill, Mr Gameswat.

Does make me wonder, though: do we even have any manufacturing left in the UK (or anywhere else, for that matter) that teaches these skills?

My daughter's boyfriend recently graduated with a nice new Mechanical Engineering degree. He is a clever lad, but I doubt he has ever seen, let alone used, a lathe.