Catalogue engravings For Pattern B Lathes
The quality of printed photographs for the earlier Pittler catalogues of 1899 and 1901 was not good enough so they probably continued the general practice of the time by using end-grain woodblock engravings for the majority of the images. These are works of art in their own right and required considerable skill to accurately reproduce the image back to front for printing.
Shown here are five different versions of the B pattern lathes along with their cost and what was included with the lathe in 1901
The B lathe was very basic and only 7 inches between centres and 3 inch height of centre. On the floor are it's few included accessories.
B2 No.1 is 11 inch centres and had screwcutting ability together with a more generous selection of accessories
B2 No.2 was similar to No1 but had the addition of a dividing spindle that replaced the screw cutting spindle as required
B2 No.3 the most popular model and capable of over 200 different operations using just the accessories included.
B2 No.4, possibly very rare, it is 23.5 inches between centres and appears to have an adjustable support for the longer bed which is rather unusual even for Pittler.
The standard accessories provided with the B2 lathes was quite generous