Call to find historic BSA machines that helped shape the world
ONE of Birmingham’s most famous engineering brands is reaching out across the globe to help locate its iconic ‘missing in action’ tool-making machines.
BSA Tools, which helped arm the country in the Second World War, has launched an appeal to find the CNC and multi-spindle automatic lathes that have helped make the world go round for decades.
The firm has all the serial numbers of the dozens of machines in its archive and hopes to service and maintain the equipment known to be still operating both at home and abroad.
“These machines were built to last and we know many are still working out there – but we want to find the machines which are missing in action,” said Emily Eyles, business development manager for BSA Tools.
“We have recently completed a rebuild on one machine which is 50 years old and it is now working as sweetly as it was on day one.
“This equipment was designed and built to a bygone age specification, a quality that preceded the notion of built-in obsolescence.
“What is frustrating is that those companies may be trying to make do and mend with servicing and repair.
“We have all of the equipment and serial numbers to help maintain these machines in pristine condition and keep them going for the next 50 years.”
Rescued from administration in 2017, the newly-relaunched BSA Tools has created 15 jobs and tempted former employees to re-join to help a new generation of engineers.
An acronym of Birmingham Small Arms, the BSA name stretches back hundreds of years to the city’s Gun Quarter.
BSA, which employed thousands of workers in its heyday, was also once the world’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer, owning brands including Triumph and Daimler.