Narrow-Bandwidth Television Association

..who *know* that NBTV is really about *mechanical TV* will appreciate this (I think).

http://danieldebruin.tumblr.com/tnt

Its very clever idea ,i didn't notice how it was programed to adjust the shape of the cylinders from the bottom time lapse pictures it looked like a manual adjustment but might of missed it .
Love the use of gravity to power it ,making the main work area a turn table is a brilliant idea .

It's done with that piece of wire - a follower moves along it's shape and replicates it down below - this is a common technique used in various situations most notable with lathes when a large number of items with the same shape need to be made.

It's called a 'Copy Lathe'. I tried to find some decent images that explained it's operation but none worth placing here found. Nothing even popped up on Wikipedia.

We had one at Frankston Tech when I was there in the early 70s amongst a bunch of standard lathes. Used mainly in woodwork but this one was for metal. The woodworking versions were great at turning out (no pun intended) stair spindles, chair and table legs etc...

These days it's all CNC.

Steve A.

Oh they are very common amongst "home woodworkers":

Here is a video of a young kid who builds his own (in this case called a Lathe Duplicator but same thing) - skip to the last minute or so to see it in action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu1jLTN9rRU

and there are many variations on the theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U2DK7x7NA0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sblSeFSbNJY

And this one is a 3-D pantograph copier (non-lathe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtm4u583YOQ

For many more examples just search for copy lathe in Youtube.