BoleynWorkshop

I was sent some scans of Coronet articles from Garner Tool News by Martin which were really appreciated and will be posted up soon on the Coronet literature page.  He also has some more which will be interesting to see.

There have been three requests for manuals so far and the latest was from a chap's daughter on his behalf for the Minor manual.  This chap is 89 years old and is rebuilding a machine that came from a neighbour who was getting rid of it.  His daughter was very pleased to have located a manual for him.  His name is Mr Christmas so have I actually sold a manual to a father Christmas?  Ok so it's a tenuous link but I'll take anything I can get.

I managed to get up to the workshop to clear the floor and the workbench from the winter's detritus but zero restoration has been achieved due to the failure of my last epidural.  On a positive note I have really enjoyed cataloguing and displaying Julian Harrison's work on his dedicated page julian-harrisons-workshop.php proving that it is possible to live vicariously through someone else's workshop.  I have also posted his 6" jointer on OWWM hopefully to increase site traffic and to introduce our overseas friends to the classic British engineering that is Coronet.

The Coronet posters displayed in coronet-advertising-etc.php have been re-scanned at a lower resolution to eradicate the pixellation  created in the original scans.  They look much more like the original posters now.  A big thanks to Ray from Stoke-on Trent who kindly re-lent the originals to me for scanning.

April 10th

Continuing to live vicariously I have posted up Julian Harrison's latest project which is a Walker Turner J915 scroll saw from approx 1947.  This has also gone up on http://www.vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=34351 where a sample of the photos can be found.  Back on the Coronet theme I had a very interesting hour long chat with Martin from South Yorkshire who had sent in some scans from an old woodworking machine of a Garner Tools advert featuring Coronet machinery.  We chatted about various machines and he kindly offered to send some more scans of other items that I have not seen before.  I will post up what he sent me soon.   Apart from selling a Minor spindle and bronze-phosphor bearing it has been pretty quiet.  I have not been able to get back up to the workshop since that brief tidy-up so have been sulking manfully.  Back to the pain service on Thursday so we'll see what happens.  In the meantime keep it Coronet!

April 19th

Things have livened up a bit this week with texts and emails rolling in.  Firstly details of some more Coronet literature and secondly a fully restored machine that might well have been reported to the RSPCC (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Coronets) if spotted in it's East Leicestershire shed by a concerned member of the public.  

So first an update on the lit.  Some time ago (see above) I was contacted by Martin from Yorkshire who had found amongst other items some very early adverts for Coronet machinery in a tool catalogue named Garner Tools News. Now they actually produced a special Coronet Major edition to promote the machine which included brief testimonials from satisfied customers all over the British Empire as it was.  This is not only interesting from a Coronet point of view but also it is a fascinating insight into times well gone by.  It mentions that the design has been worked on for about two years which as the company started in 1947 means that it must be dated approx 1949-51.  (Correct me if I'm wrong anybody?)  At present it is still in PDF form but I hope to post it here soon after a struggle with technology.  I'm wondering if PDF stands for Pretty Damned Faulty because trying to do anything with them makes me Pretty Damned Furious.  Martin also produced an advert from a Woodworker magazine dated Feb 1951 (also in Jan 51 edition) showing a very early Major with a distinctive feet shape.  It's yet to be confirmed but this could be one of the, if not THE first Major model.  Thanks for your continuing interest Martin.

On to the cruelly treated Minorette.  Jon White contacted me to admit that despite buying a Minorette brand new in 1962 he then left it in a damp and leaky shed for the next 55 years while enjoying youthful pursuits. (Jon, we've all been there.) However he more than redeemed himself in it's restoration which can be viewed here in Even More Readers Machines just scroll down the page.  You might think that it was in fact a new machine from the photos, what a great job you have done there Jon.  He is also the proud owner of a Coronet Sovereign extended bed planer and suggested he sends pictures of that in the future.  Well, what can I say?  (He has, so please follow the link)

There is a rare Coronet lathe on *bay right now.  I had spotted this at the weekend but was also alerted to it by Pete the Hedge who sent the link to the item which I will attempt to reproduce here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WATCHMAKERS-8mm-CORONET-RUBY-LATHE-MILLING-MACHINE-5-SPEED-MOTOR/392020683139?hash=item5b4640e983:g:s-wAAOSwUZNawg62 These rarely come up so by all means buy it and send me some more pictures!

May 15th

On the whole it's been a pretty rotten month watching my elder brother suffering with a particularly nasty and rapid form of cancer.  The speed with which it destroyed his life was simply frightening.  Eight weeks ago he was working his welding/fabricating/mezzanine floor business and early yesterday morning he died.  There will be a minutes silence observed in the Boleyn Workshop on Saturday May 19th at 11am.  Finding the need to occupy myself this evening I decided to head up to the workshop, to blast out a bit of punk and strip down the Meddings floor drill ready for transportation to it's new home.  For the music I chose V2 by the Vibrators.  The album's intro of a V2 rocket sounds as it flew before cutting out, falling silently and then exploding was the ideal expression of my mood.  I did wonder due to my mood whether both me and the Meddings would survive this stripping down or whether we would both fall to earth and explode much like a V2 itself..  Several days ago I had liberally coated the post, motor nuts/bolts, base plate nuts/bolts with penetrating oil to aid the removal process.  First job was to remove the switch from the plate attached to the drill head in order to remove the motor.  Next the Metropolitan Vickers motor itself was removed along with the motor plate and put to one side.  The Meddings drill head is heavy no two ways about it.  It was not going to be possible to lift it directly off the post due to the height of the workshop ceiling and ahem ahem the sheer darn weight of it.  However I have a cunning plan for floor drills which involves tilting them over until they are resting on  a (collapsible) workbench between the wooden tops which are then tightened together gripping the post.  This makes it substantially easier to remove the head but don't try this at home.  It is indicative of my present state of mind that it was only when I had the entire weight of the head in my arms that I realized that I was still wearing flipflops.  Again, don't try this at home.  Perhaps I should look into getting some steel capped flipflops just in case it happens again.  Once the drill head was off it was easy to remove the small tray and the table before loosening the bolts holding the post to the base and lifting it off.  All in all a good hours work at my pace ie slow.

May 29th

Due to the testing events of the last month I think I can be forgiven for not mentioning that the Summer Transfer window is open and that an exciting move has already taken place.  I was contacted by an old workshop buddy Mike who was after a guide/fence for a Coronet Major.  In the event we ended up at cross purposes as I thought he was after a mitre fence when he was actually looking for a rip fence for the table saw.  However he did not have a wasted journey and not only because he was visiting the internationally known Boleyn workshop.  (Yeah I know..)  We both spent some time admiring my old Meddings 2-speed floor drill and before very long had agreed a swap for his Walker Turner dp700 bench drill.  Now this WT is the very one featured on my site with the earlier 1930s badge on the head and not only that but the soughtafter original art deco switch is fitted.  Now you might not think an old switch is not anything to get excited about but this one was designed in the art deco period of the late 1920s/30s when even machines were designed to look pleasing as well as to be functional.  I can feel a complete rebuild coming on and the need for a chat with old workshop mate Julian Harrison for the original paint code.

On a maroon note Jon White sent in some pictures of his Coronet Consort restoration which is nearing completion.

July 1st

Yes, I am indeed posting while the World Cup is on.  But in my defence I am waiting for the ko between Mexico and Brazil this afternoon amd have a spare 20 minutes.  I actually have a spare 24 hours but that's not the point.  So for those of you who wonder whether anything comes out of the Boleyn workshop that isn't maroon, red or blue then have a look at the sweet cart below.  It's white.  It has been made for my assistant's mum's wedding in August and was finished a week before the completion date.  No, it was really.  Made from timber that was just sitting around it is finished here in white undercoat as they are going to add decoration themselves.  Fortunately I made it in separate parts that come apart so it can fit into a reasonably priced middle sized car.  The roof removes as do the pillars and frame. The wheels, handles and front steady can also be unbolted and removed.

Last year or probably the year before even, I was contacted by a chap called Dave Coates from Devizes (Wiltshire) who asked whether I would be interested in seeing his Major General.  For a brief moment the world seemed to slow on its axis and the words on the screen became fuzzy and hard to read.  No, it wasn’t my pain meds kicking in all at once or a medical episode requiring a 999 call but a natural reaction to being asked to view one of the rarest and the largest Coronet lathes produced.  They don’t come around very often perhaps not only due to their initial cost back in the day but also because they are a damn serious bit of kit and will not fit into the average 6x4 larch lap shed.  Not unless you want to get in with it yourself that is and perhaps not everyone does.  But someone who definitely does is Dave Coates and his workshop is man enough to take one as well as a large woodworkers bench and other assorted machinery.  More of that later.  He bought the Major General some years ago although the price seemed high until the ubiquitous box of bits was produced when suddenly it didn’t seem so bad after all.  Once firmly ensconced in Dave’s workshop the General was thoroughly cleaned, greased and oiled where needed before having the paintwork neatly touched up.  The result is that it looks almost as good as it did the day it left the workshop causing two slipped discs and a minor hernia between the unlucky blokes carrying it.  Having made initial contact it was still a further two years before I managed to visit Dave, Devizes not being a place I travelled either to or near enough to, to warrant its own visit.  However after several postponements, delays and months of general memory loss I found myself with the need to travel to Chippenham to pick up a glass table top and the possibility of returning home via Devizes.  As it happened, the Chippenham trip was a waste of time as in the eventuality the firm had sent the wrong size piece but as I said to the shop foreman; not a problem, I’ve got something better to do on the way home.  And did I ever.  I found Dave of Devizes easily enough thanks to the navigation aid built into my car otherwise it would have been a different story.  I was welcomed at the door and Dave firstly showed off some of his delicate turning projects that made it hard to believe that they had come from such a beast of a lathe as the General.  In true Wiltshire hospitality Dave offered me a choice of one of three oak platters, finished with luminescent paint, he had turned himself that were hanging on his front room wall.  And then we went to the workshop.

Now I was never in the Armed Forces but when I saw that Major General for the first time I felt I should salute.  There was only one word for the sight in front of me, majestic, awesome.  Ok that’s two words but you get my point.  How else can you describe the feeling that three solid steel bars instil in you if they’re not part of a cell door or in the deadly hands of ninja assassins?  They say you should never meet your heroes but this was an exception, this machine met all expectations and went some way beyond.  In truth my photos do not do it justice but that would be a good excuse to return to Devizes with some decent camera equipment and out that right.