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Assembled from an assortment of standard "Picador" components - bearing blocks, a connecting tube to form the bed, pulleys, faceplates, a grinding wheel and guards, tool rest, a tilting saw table, drill chuck and wood-drive centre - the Picador lathe was listed as both the "Home Handyman Universal Lathe"and "Pup". Unfortunately the maker's advertising was hardly state of the art, proclaiming on the box in which the machine was delivered, the immortal words "The Poor Man's Pal".
Intended, originally, to be run from a 1/4" capacity electric drill, it was incapable of turning metal yet, nevertheless, proved from the late 1940s onwards to be a most popular and useful adjunct to the workshop of the impecunious enthusiast - of whom, in those austere post-WW2 years, there were many. Possession of a Pup, or components from it, allowed him or her to carry out a multitude of tasks that would otherwise have involved the purchase of several separate and very much more expensive and, in those times, difficult-to-find machines.
3/4" in diameter, the tube supplied was 24" long and passed through three supports that the makers referred to as "Tallboys" - these being held in place by cotter pins. Fitted with oil-retaining, graphite impregnated, powdered bronze bearings, two Tallboys acted as the headstock and held a 5/8" diameter ground steel spindle, its ends being machined with left and right-hand 1/2" x 24 t.p.i. threads and equipped with a proper ball thrust race. Fitted to the right-hand side was a small 3-jaw drill chuck - this end also being drilled and tapped 3/8" x 24 t.p.i. to accept a radially-slotted faceplate and a disc to which could be glued the supplied circles of sandpaper. Also amongst the equipment was a saw table that could be tilted through 45°, together with a 4-inch diameter blade. The table was properly equipped with a fence and saw guard, the latter, as usual, designed to open as the wood was fed in and close as it left.
On the left-hand end of the spindle was a guarded, 4-inch diameter Alumax grinding wheel and U-shaped tool rest, the latter with a V-groove set at 59° to face the side of the wheel - this being correct angle for sharpening twist drills.
The third tallboy acted as the tailstock, this having a spindle in ground steel, threaded where it passed into the casting so as to provide a feed, aligned by a key and threaded externally and internally. The external thread was 1/2" x 24 t.p.i., to which could be fitted a drill chuck, and the internal 1/4" 24 t.p.i. , this being intended to accept, amongst other fittings, the supplied hardened cone centre, a faceplate or a tapered "false nose" to which could be screwed a polishing mop.
Also in the kit was simple T-rest to support wood-turning tools, this being held in place on a "footstock", a casting bored to fit around the bed tube and resting at the front on right-angle foot. Later kits might have included a pair of wood-turning tools and a "motor rail", a simple hinged bracket that allowed the use of an ordinary foot-mounted motor in place of an electric drill.
While one cannot claim that this assembly of steel and die-cast aluminium components represented state-of-the-art engineering, many tens of thousands of individual Picador parts were sold for owners to make up their own interpretation of useful workshop devices. Common in amateur workshops until the 1970s, such things as Picador polishing, grinding and wire-brushing rigs, simple wood-turning lathes and saw benches, lathe and milling machine countershafts and sanding discs, etc. were all to be found. Single and multi-step V-pulleys were a Picador speciality and of these - judging by their almost universal use on home-built machines - hundreds of thousands must have been sold. A surprising number of Picador assemblies are still in use today - or to be found tucked away under benches, covered in decades of dust and waiting to be revived.
The background to, and history of, the Picador Company is shrouded in mystery. The only information available shows that it was founded in London in the 1920's and a competitor with Draper Tools, another maker of generally lower-cost items. The company relocated to Birmingham in the 1940's or early 1950s and was then was bought by what appears to have been a private individual (the writer recalls having some contact with him) and relocated to Scunthorpe.
Interestingly, some Picador tools (particularly the earlier ones) bear the same mark as the drill press by SHK (http://www.lathes.co.uk/shk). One example has been found that bears not only the markings "SHK/HSK/HKS" but cast into the main column "Picador made in England". It has now been discovered that some "Pup" models carry patent numbers taken out by Herbert Kohn Staub, which explains the "HKS" connection with the SHK - Mr. Staub seemingly keen to mix up his initials when marking his designs. Hence, we now know that the drill was made in England, Mr. Staub being the owner of the Company with many of his 15 patents, taken out in the 1950s and 1960s, relating to Picador items. Items he registered included measuring rules, plummer blocks (an item so typical of Picador), ways of mounting self-aligning and adjustable bearings, spanner keys, improvements to bearings, improvements to hand tools, hand tool handles, improvements to pivotal supports, belt-tensioning devices and machinery mountings, improvements in grooved pulleys for use with V-section belts, and improved base frame for motors and other machines (another typical Picador product), and an improved bracket for mounting plummer blocks. Some of his patent drawings are reproduced below
Picador tool bearing SHK badging - and so presumably also designed by Straub - was the 4-inch "Rotosaw", a picture of its maker's plate is at the bottom of the page.
My thanks to Gavin Redshaw for his help in ongoing research into this matter.
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