1940's bike factory video

[oigoi]

Thought some of you folks might like watching this:

From the Archives: 1940s Bike Tutorial of the Day - The Daily What

 

[flecc]

With all that manual input shows why an ordinary "roadster" bike cost about two weeks wages of an average worker then. Now a worker can pick up two, three, or even four bikes for one week's wage, though the build quality is lower.

 

[Cyclezee]

Thank you for that Oigoi, quite fascinating

I wonder what the HSE would have to say about some of those work practices

 

[smudger1956]

Thanks for sharing that Oigoi, a great insight on how it 'used to be'..

 

[laroche]

I want one of those cool chain wheels!

 

[neptune]

The chainwheel seems to be a Raleigh one. But at one time we see the name Rudge on the frame. So presumably this was the Raleigh factory after they bought out Rudge. It reminded me of an old black and white film called "Saturday Night and Sunday morning."

 

[avronb]

All gone to China,but not the quality.

 

[Scimitar]

I noticed one grinder wearing goggles - he must have been a bit of a lightweight, unlike his tougher colleague who had cast-iron eyes.
Jeez, when I see those kind of things I really wonder how factory owners got away with it - helped, of course, by idiots who didn't wear the gear that was supplied.

 

[the_killjoy]

I liked the way the frames were painted, by dipping in the tank ~ were they then air dried? It certainly gave a thick finish unlike some of the current bikes.

 

[rooel]

Interesting bits of language too, eg "cottar pins". The last bicycle I remember with cotter pins was a fully equipped Peugeot tourer which I bought in 1979. And look at the "bottom bracket", exactly what anyone would expect the words to describe, a carefully fashioned piece which secures the tubes to each other with a hole for the crank spindle, but for a number of years now when I have had to seek out a "crank spindle" (ie the spindle which goes through the bottom bracket and joins the cranks together) I have had to search under "bottom bracket" (eg Shimano BB70B XT/SLX External Bottom Bracket English Thread).

 

[neptune]

It is human nature, as we get older to spend more time thinking about the past. These old black and white films provide a tantalising glimpse of past times. One thing I have noticed though is that the commentary is always provided by someone with an "upper class" accent. This was especially noticeable on the Pathe Newsreel films that used to be shown at the cinema, and the same applied to radio announcers and newsreaders.

This all seemed to change in the late 50s and early 60s. I think that two things were responsible for this change. One was the coming of New wave films, also known as Kitchen Sink drama. For the first time it became acceptable to portray working class life in all its gory reality. The second thing, which was an extension of the first was the success of television dramas like Coronation Street. A good example of a new wave film was of course "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" . The hero lived in Nottingham, and worked in an unnamed bike factory.

One result of all this is that it is OK for newsreaders and announcers to speak with a dialect. If you look at old documentaries of HM the Queen, you will realise that the way she speaks today is much different to the way she spoke then. It is now considered cool to speak with a dialect . We should all be proud of our roots.

 

[flecc]

If you look at old documentaries of HM the Queen, you will realise that the way she speaks today is much different to the way she spoke then.

The names her nippers got also reflects this, Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. If she'd been having kids more recently it could have been Darren, Tracy, Connor and Jason. Maybe even a Princess Kylie.!

 

[avronb]

I worked for 20+ years as a paint sprayer so i noticed the enamel dip, but i would like to know what the pre treatment was like back then.Todays cars dont rust like they used to back in the 60s,the top coats were better then but the pre treatments were rubbish.

 

[jerrysimon]

Absolutely fascinating!

Blocks of metal come in one end and a bicycle comes out the other. Everything made and assembled in the same place.

I loved watching the wheel building.

What also amazes me is watching the mind numbing work of the repetitive tasks. I guess they would swap workers round onto different parts of the manufacturing line. People I guess back then had much less expectations of life and didn't all want to be famous like today.

Thanks so much for posting.

Regards

Jerry

 

[bode]

Blocks of metal come in one end and a bicycle comes out the other. Everything made and assembled in the same place.

I was given a tour of the the Ford factory at Dagenham in the early 1960s, and they even smelted their own steel. Lumps of pig-iron arrived by barge and Zephyrs and Anglias drove out. I think they said it was 30 acres under one roof. Oh, and they had their own coal-fired power station too.

 

[flecc]

What also amazes me is watching the mind numbing work of the repetitive tasks. I guess they would swap workers round onto different parts of the manufacturing line. People I guess back then had much less expectations of life and didn't all want to be famous like today.

Actually no, not in any I knew of. The men were very proud of their skill at their particular job and would often do it for life. The wheels were the best example, they were built to a very high standard, not like the variable spoke tensions and sloppy machine builds we have today. The one job for life wasn't only confined to factories either, it was quite normal for someone to start a job at 14 or 15 leaving school and still be doing it at 65 when they retired, even then only too happy to talk about it!

You are right about the low expectations of course, ambition was very low in the perspective of most.

 

[neptune]

It is quite likely that workers would not want to be swapped around. As well as being proud of their particular skills, they were probably paid a bonus based on how many widgets they processed in a day. I have met people who had dull repetitive jobs. I knew a guy once who worked in a chicken processing factory. As the chickens came past, hung on an assembly line , his job was to remove a particular piece of the chickens innards as it came past. The plant ran all year 24/7 except for one week of downtime for maintenance. When the owner died, they closed the plant for a whole day on the occasion of his funeral. I said at the time that this was bad for productivity, they should have just hung his corpse on the assembly line, and each worker could have doffed his hat as he passed by. It could have been messy when he went through the de-feathering plant though...
There is an urban myth about the most boring job in the world. Upon leaving school this guy got a job in a factory. His job was to operate a large wheel valve. When the green light came on he would open the valve. When the red light came on he would close it . Just before he retired at 65 , they stripped the machine for maintenance. They found that the valve was not actually connected to anything.

 

[Scimitar]

What also amazes me is watching the mind numbing work of the repetitive tasks. I guess they would swap workers round onto different parts of the manufacturing line.

Volvo did that in the late 60s or early 70s and found it increased quality by a fair bit. They had a team attached to each group of cars as they progressed through the plant, so were multi-skilled. Apparently the builders were quite interested in making sure the vehicles got put together as well as possible, as it made their own jobs in subsequent stages easier. I don't know what bonus payments they were on - probably not piecework, but they'd get a quality or productivity bonus.

People I guess back then had much less expectations of life and didn't all want to be famous like today.

People knew their place back then