COMPANY

Company Information

Harold W. Clisby (3 Aug 1912-12 Feb 2005)

In 1970 Harold William Clisby, owner of Clisby Industries Pty Ltd, decided to produce a small lathe using bronze and aluminium extrusions as the means of construction, to save the amount of machining required using conventional iron castings.

The initial run was produced and proved very successful for such a small machine. However, Clisby Industries' air compressor line of products increased in such large quantities, the Clisby lathe project ceased and eventually was sold to Sherline Products, who now produce them in large quantities.

Twenty years later, the Clisby Industries factory was finally sold off and Harold Clisby purchased a new factory premises, Clisby Design Engineering. But he did not have a product, so once again the Clisby lathe project resurfaced. However, Harold had no plans to be in competition with Sherline Products. The new design was again totally constructed with high quality extrusions but this time producing the smallest real working lathe in the world.

The bed design uses two dovetails, one on the outside for the saddle slides and a second in the centre to provide a very accurate, permanent location for the head and tailstock. This prevents any wear by the saddle that would affect the axial alignment of these two parts.

A very small but powerful five pole, 12 volt DC motor is supplied, and connected by a 60 toothed timing belt to the headstock gear, providing an anti-slip drive.

The lathe was designed to look like a scaled down facsimile of a regular large machine, with as much aesthetic appeal as possible, without affecting the performance whatsoever.

Andrena D. Clisby, Harold's daughter, now manages the company “Clisby Miniature Machines”.