Modern Production (1950-1959)

A group of school children watch a model of a wheel turning driven by a sort of water pump that drives a hammer action. Primitive water lifting devices for irrigation along the banks of the Nile. A graphic of a large Egyptian statue being pulled along by slaves using wooden rollers on a track. An oxen walks in a circle turning a large wheel that is connected to another wheel raising water for irrigation. A clock that runs for years driven by a ball rolling over a tilting plate.
Cut to a large industrial production line at British Motor Corporation showing the production of engine parts and their assemble. At the head of the line an operator clamps an engine block into a fixture that will automatically pass it from one machine to another as the engine is machined, drilled and bored to completion. Each step of the process is shown in great detail until the whole engine is completed and then the gear box case is added. No detail is spared and there are natural sound effects for every moment of the operation. The narrator tells us that "these wonderful machines are a far cry from the rollers the Egyptians used and yet in practice they are doing the same thing, lessening the load on man, easing his work and at the same time increasing his productivity. This method of production has been called "Automation".
For similar shots to these, but in full colour see "Magic in Metal" *PM2299*. This is also produced by B.M.C.
FILM ID:2299.06
A VIDEO FROM BRITISH PATHÉ. EXPLORE OUR ONLINE CHANNEL, BRITISH PATHÉ TV. IT'S FULL OF GREAT DOCUMENTARIES, FASCINATING INTERVIEWS, AND CLASSIC MOVIES. www.britishpath...
FOR LICENSING ENQUIRIES VISIT www.britishpath...
British Pathé also represents the Reuters historical collection, which includes more than 136,000 items from the news agencies Gaumont Graphic (1910-1932), Empire News Bulletin (1926-1930), British Paramount (1931-1957), and Gaumont British (1934-1959), as well as Visnews content from 1957 to the end of 1984. All footage can be viewed on the British Pathé website. www.britishpat...

[@jimsvideos7201]

These early episodes of How Its Made are terrific. Yes, I know.

[@Diesel8290]

All those automated machines running on analogue relay ladder logic 🫠 engineers back then were built different.

[@ScoutSniper3124]

That's amazing, man went from the roller to the wheel to the clock and then factories all in the space between 1950 to 1959. Just amazing!

[@WheresmywingsRedBull]

I love how all the machining sounds are all like some dude in his backyard shed dryreaming a blunt drill bit into hardened steel

[@nikreichel2232]

I wonder why they did not use more fluids in the production line at the beginning and only begin to use it at the clutch housing (?).

[@paradiselost9946]

@@nikreichel2232 probably the first bit of aluminium. blocks and heads would have been CI back then. machine it dry...

[@shawnhuk]

Horrible…

[@sidneydawe9937]

Did you notice the 3 bearing crankshafts near the end? They had a tendency to break on the Mk. 1 Cortina. The later models had the 5 bearing crankshaft.

[@guillermobohrdt589]

Excellent video showing old but efficient serial production methods. I've worked in Deutz engine facility in Argentina with very similar machines. Thanks for sharing!

[@lynnhughes6350]

I have a stand by generator made by Duetz for my poultry production facility

[@Maisonier]

¿Qué usan ahora? 1 cnc moderno de varios ejes reemplaza todo esto?

[@ryanelliott197]

I like how they just keep using the same sound every time they add audio for the machines lol

[@mohamedsakr5570]

Old is gold.

[@bazza945]

You could always spot an oil drip pan under new BMC vehicles on the showroom floor. They continue to drip oil for the rest of their life. Engine oil was relatively cheap back then. I never experienced a drip from my later Japanese vehicles, not one drop for all the time I had them!

[@russvoight1167]

Sounds like the two cycle Detroit Deisels, you worried when they quit leaking oil as my then they were out of oil

[@lucarambaldi2731]

@@russvoight1167 DIESEL...🥱🥱🥱

[@johnsherborne3245]

My Morris minor leaked so badly I scrounged old engine oil from the company car mechanic. It did six thousand miles in some one less engine. Then it did another hundred in my car. It had 36,000 miles on the clock at 12 years. A big shock when I bought my first VW!

[@scaletownmodels]

What those guys would think if they saw all that production hardware replaced with a couple cnc machines nowadays. The fun it must be when a cutter breaks somewhere in the middle of that huge mechanism. Or they have to move a hole a tenth of an inch.

[@danneumann3274]

I think this is much faster than cnc. It hard to beat special built machines. Notice the 8 boring heads boring 32 blocks in about 15 seconds . I own about 8 cnc machines

[@paradiselost9946]

production machines are still far closer to this than "CNC"... far faster to move lots of work through a bank of machines performing one specific task each than load a bank of machines capable of all tasks each, when one factors in tool changes and all that. two multi head drills will spotface and drill 32 holes in two operations, the CNC mill takes 64 operations and two tool changes. one man can run both setups. one will be standing idle more waiting for cycles to end. so it makes sense to get them to run ten setups. but then theres walking distances. and then theres 10X as many made and the rest of the production line cant cope... so then those ten machines sit idle. ok, run different machines as well... still gotta walk, and theres more chance of a mistake... swiss machines are comparable, and are often CNC now... but still, very little has changed from what they did to what they now do, if you went into the shop making valves and followers and other little round parts... CNC is a broad term... this was NC... plugboard. punchcard. the modern machine still needs all the same gauges, all the same toolsetting and endstops. its just using a few fancier electronics to do so. and everything is definitely faster! again... they invested so much capital on tooling up. sold cars. made money. then the next line up of tools was slightly better, a new factory got the new tools, new techniques... all those jigs took planning, design. the layout of the line, each step... usually a step forward, occasionally a step back... only thing you see different now is far less "dead time"... some of those feed rates are painful to watch!

[@davidquirk8097]

Transfer Lines (as these are caled) are very fast compared to CNC machines. CNC has flexibility but just the time changing tools eats up production volumes. I worked at Lister-Petter back in the laste 1990s and they had a transfer line for their own engines and a CNC line for the licence built Mitsubishi engines. The Transfer line could machine a cylinder block, start to finish, in a matter of minutes, the CNC line took several hours to machine one cylinder block.

[@scaletownmodels]

@@davidquirk8097 Yes, no doubt. Once the line was setup and tuned but not very flexible. CNC processes can be pretty slow but are highly flexible. Each being great for it's specific purpose. It's like comparing a 3d printer to an injection molder. One requires very expensive setup but is fast the other is a button press to change but slower.

[@andrewknowles9783]

Whoa!! Cincinnati Machine Tools!!!

[@markblundell9461]

Nationalization! Along with Rover and Jaguar. They were brought together under the Leyland umbrella and nationalized in 1975 to form British Leyland. ( I believe)

[@stephenrice4554]

And it knackered them , then they played into the hands of the government and that was the end .

[@maxflight777]

@@stephenrice4554 *Well said* As an example : the most frightening words a businessman can hear are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”

[@denisfedotov3013]

Впечатляет,как для 50 года

[@cachetediabolico9427]

Super

[@georgehenry7887]

The music reminds me of Thunderbirds, I wonder if Gerry Anderson was influenced

[@Cromwell648]

Excellent.

[@vladimirb5319]

I´d like to know what was the service availability of the plant, the waste rate and first of all how did they get rid of all the oily metal shavings.

[@stxrynn]

I believe they used soluble oil, that's the white fluid. It was a mixture of oil and water. Like most modern cutting coolants. For the heavy machining they used oil. The shavings went back into the furnace and were reused. The oil or coolant was drained off and the rest burned away, IIRC.

[@maxflight777]

@@stxrynn spot on 👍

[@sferg9582]

Listening to the audio track of the incessant "dry-drill syndrome" while machining the block is totally annoying to me. I retired as a machinist after 47 years and have often told the younger machinists that if the tool isn't cutting, it's just rubbing.... which means it's wearing out without any value to the effort.

[@RickaramaTrama-lc1ys]

Love these old films of our past. Thanks.

[@paulz5531]

Cool video, but the squealing drill sounds dubbed in make me cringe.

[@jonusjonus9271]

noticed that too. its such a great film otherwise.

[@SteveReid-x3d]

Meanwhile I can barely drill a hole in a broom handle

[@maxflight777]

Fabulous video. Sad to say that ; The boredom and stress of the job shows on the face of the man at 9:01

[@lucarambaldi2731]

He doesn't seem absolutely stressed to me and in any case not even to be compared with a CONTEMPORARY Worker... 😁... Look at the Video Worker... He even wears a tie, hair arranged as if it were at his wedding, beard totally absent then obviously a serial job has nothing fun like any repetitive job.

[@rocon86]

How were they building such bad cars? The production process seemed solid. Is it down to the differences between imperial measurement and metric?

[@sneedchuckington]

The UK uses Imperial too, buddy.

[@KossolaxtheForesworn]

suppose the only thing that has changed is that there is even less operators and the machines have advances a whole lot.

[@dennisyoung4631]

Early N.C. Machining…

[@abpccpba]

Is this system run and controlled by Ladder Logic?

[@luizmorgado1252]

Máquinas velhas fazem máquinas novas

[@casualriley]

sQuEaK SqUeAk sQuEaK SqUeAk sQuEaK SqUeAk

[@paradiselost9946]

that repetitive dry drilling of steel sound effect dubbed on every stage gets really annoying, really quickly...

[@kotnapromke]

Рабочие худые. Видно, жизнь не сладкая.

[@diegovega6545]

McDONALS AND THE FAST FOOD WASN'T INVENTED YET THAT'S WHY !! CHECK FOR U.S.A OLD VIDEOS FROM 30'S 40'S AND 50'S AND YOU'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO SEE MOST OF THE PEOPLE WERE SKINNY GREETINGS FROM SALINAS , CALIFORNIA , USA PEACE ✌️!!!!

[@danieleredaelli5588]

Nel dopo guerra pochi erano grassi ,e poi mangiavano ancora genuino,poi è arrivato il cibo spazzatura ,e l'alcol ..e si sono tutti fottuti ,compreso il cervello

[@sergiocarlos1722]

Nice intro

[@richarddey6793]

not a hi viz in sight

[@arminkaiser8933]

So thats the optimized production line in HOI4?

[@hillarious2393]

Where is BMC today?

[@dietznutz1]

Dead and buried where they should be

[@dietznutz1]

Actually that might be British Leyland

[@bazza945]

Killed off by old processes and better quality Japanese vehicles.

[@lucarambaldi2731]

WHY SOME WORKERS HAVE A TIE...🤔😳😁

[@rndullrobinson3076]

too be dragged into the machinery and strangled

[@KonstantinKN]

Рашке такой прогресс и не снился )

[@حميدالساعدي-ب4د]

The first mechanical and tire in mesubotamia in lraq not in Egypt

[@trappenweisseguy27]

All of that sophisticated equipment to produce crap cars.

[@johnsherborne3245]

Sadly there was nothing very wrong with the production engineering, but a lot wrong with the way management was fossilised. Lions led by donkeys.

[@fazliwahab8568]

Hello this is 2023

[@arunshriram4937]

Jai bhim

[@Yacine-e9p]

British : Bretons originaires de Bretagne

[@wheninodmyheadhitit]

Compleat lack of any guarding what so ever, ouch.

[@gusthebus2542]

Why no xomments

[@Verchiel_]

Everyone got so amazed they couldn't contain the knowledge and explored, Hank. we are among few that were powerful enough.

[@Hjkll142]

Tudo isso aí virou sucata

[@fintimwhimbim]

Help me out. Is 11:13 perpetual motion? Can someone explain why, if it's not?

[@nikreichel2232]

Haha, that would have been nice. Obviously the ball releases a mechanism so the scale is being tipped the other way. Why should the scale tip the other way when the ball is on that end that would weigh it down? The ball maze is just a very slow and instant pendulum, nothing more.

[@AnarchyEnsues]

you know 10 years later, white man landed on the moon.... and we would of never done it if it wasnt for 3 half black women....

[@astebbin]

Or, you know, hundreds of thousands of white men