Friends' Gallery Picture of the Month - January 2019

[Tony Griffiths]

Bill Sheehan writes:

Congrats Mike on a great photo - it perhaps also illustrates the efficacy of German camera lenses so long ago.  Another clear shot is the attached, showing the Auto Unions being weighed prior  to the 1934 German Grand Prix.  But my question - does anyone know who piloted No. 63?   Cheers,  Bill in Oz

Although German lenses have a great reputation, amusingly, while researching Taylor Hobson engravers I came across an interesting fact: during the 1930s the British firm of Taylor Hobson supplied over 80% of the world's lenses used in film studios, especially in America ....this was part of a long-standing tie-up with the Leeds-based Cooke Lens company, their special zoom lenses for cine photography proving the most popular ever made. Later, in the 1940s and 1950s, Taylor Hobson again took the lead in critical areas of high-precision measurement with the Talysurf - the world's first true surface texture measuring instrument and the Talyrond the world's first roundness measuring instrument, this resulting in a step change in a machine shop's ability to measure accurately. Both remained world-leading products for years and were followed by the Talystep (is still regarded as the finest step height and surface finish instrument ever made) and then the Nanostep - that allowed measurements to nanometric accuracy (further developments you'll find online....). The company is now part of the American AMETEK's Ultra Precision Technologies Group.