There was one screwing machine or lathe which all apprentices in the vice loft (as the fitting shop in which the writer was apprenticed was called) had to work during their curriculum--this was a small double-bar lathe with a guide screw between. The fixed head was on the right of the operator, and the lathe was worked by hand by means of a wheel very much like a miniature ship’s steering wheel. This wheel was about 2-ft. diameter, with handles round the rim, and we apprentices were put at this machine to develop the muscles of the right arm. The advantages of having the fixed head on the right (instead of on the left, as in an ordinary lathe) was that in cutting a right-hand thread the tool receded away from the start and ran off the end, and thus prevented a “root in,” which might happen if, whilst pulling at the wheel, you became absorbed in the discussion of the abilities of a music-hall “star” or other equally interesting topics with a fellow-apprentice. The writer remembers using a pair of calipers at that time, whose “points” were about ¹⁄₂ in. wide for measuring over the tops of a thread. These were stamped “J. Whitworth, 1830,” and formerly belonged to the great screw-thread reformer. Nearly all the bar lathes were driven by gut bands, and one can remember gut bands of 1-in. diameter being used. Most of the planing machines were made and supplied by Joseph Whitworth & Co., and the tool boxes were of the “Jim Crow” type, which used to make a half-turn round by means of a cord when the belt was shifted at the end of each stroke, thus cutting each way. The forerunner of this used to interest the writer--a machine in the vice loft that was variously called a shaping machine and a planing machine. It was driven by means of a disc about 3-ft. diameter, with a slot down the disc for varying the stroke. A connecting rod from the disc to the tool box completed this portion of the machine. The tool box was supported and kept true by two cylindrical bars or guides on each side, so that the whole arrangement was like the crosshead of an engine worked by disc and connecting rod. On the top of the tool box was fixed a toothed sector of a wheel, and at the end of each stroke this sector engaged with a rack, and in this way the tool box took a half-turn and was ready for cutting on the return stroke. The writer understands that it was from this machine that Whitworth developed his “Jim Crow” tool box. There was also a huge shaping machine, whose stroke was anything up to about 6 ft., which was simply a tool box fixed on the end of a large triangular bar of about 12-in. side with the “V” downwards. To the back of the bar was attached a rack, and this, gearing with a pinion, gave the motion. It was a great fascination to watch this ponderous bar with its tool box slowly coming forward out of its casing and taking immense cuts.