A friend who passed away in 2017 was a patternmaker by trade and for most of his life had worked as a manufacturing engineer. Anyway I was driving past his old workshop which was now his son's and saw several skip bins outside so I dropped in to visit. The property was sold and would be demolished soon for a microbrewery to be built in it's place. There were a stack of patterns stored in the loft and I had a few hours to get them down, sort through them and take the ones I wanted before the rest were thrown away. I've managed to get full sets of patterns for various machines as well as some interesting patterns. They are all intended for resin sand but could be used with sodium silicate with graphite coatings. They are mostly for gemstone faceting machines made in the 1990's or later. Other patterns were for equatorial mounts for 8" mirror telescopes. I also have some incomplete engine manifold patterns that were used for turbocharging Ford six cylinder motors and Toyota Landcruiser diesels. Hundreds and hundreds of the Toyota turbo kits were sold to Indonesian gold mines that were at altitude in the tropics to get respectable horsepower output.
Nice that you got to rummage through the lot and save some patterns. Sort of a snapshot in time of what he was working on and how he did it. The new establishment should hang a couple up as a keepsake.
I was lucky that my foundry friend was the one making the castings since 1976 or so and could identify various patterns that HIS mentor made. I phoned him and he came round to help. There were incomplete pattern set for seven generations of faceting machine dating back to the 1960's. I suspect the new establishment will bulldoze the lot to meet new planning laws for car parking etc. certainly the 1950's shed is tired. I get the impression they may not care about patterns. That workshop also did a lot of performance vehicle work and racing ski boats over the years, even developing fuel injection computers. The photo doesn't show the two post hoist, a couple of lathes and milling machines and the wheel dyno that were crammed into the place. They were turbocharging luxury vehicles for Saudi princes, in one case a brand new, top of the line Lexus four wheel drive was sent for turbo upgrades. The vehicle was prototyped, tested and a turbo kit sent to Saudi Arabia to be fitted, after that they were told they could keep the prototype Lexus 4WD.
