Schaublin 65 & 70 Lathes 
Schaublin Models 90, 102 & 102N Plain Lathes
Schaublin 102N-VM   
Schaublin 102-VM   
Schaublin 102 Accessories 
Schaublin 102-VM Photographs   
Schaublin 120-VM
Schaublin 125
Schaublin SV-130 and SV150   
Schaublin 135
Milling Slides & High-speed Heads 
Schaublin milling machines
Schaublin 102 Sliding Headstock Spindle

With the exception of hydroelectricity, wood and tourism Switzerland has no natural resources beyond the skill and ingenuity of its people - who for decades have provided various service industries and made high-class, value-added goods. Typical of the latter, Schaublin machine tools are manufactured by CH. Schaublin-Villeneuve with (at various times) the head office and main machine-tool factory at Bévilard, lathe and milling machine accessories in Tremelan, an experimental department and training school at Malleray, the manufacture of spare parts in Orvin and a collet factory in Delémont.  Born in 1883, in Waldenburg, Charles Schaublin started his business in April, 1915 in Malleray, then a small rural town - though with a small but established watch and clock-making industry. Based in that area of Switzerland famous for the manufacture of watches and other high-precision timekeepers, all Schaublin's products were directed at that and similar trades, with production eventually including not only lathes but miniature precision drills, tapping machines, automatic multiple drilling machines, machines for sharpening flat drills, taps, cutters and gun-boring drills ("D" bits), manual and tooth-rounding machines and other specialised equipment. The lathes, initially all plain-turning types, were similar in concept to the well-established American "bench precision" models as made for many years by, amongst others: Stark (the originators) Levin, Bottum, American Watch Tool Company, B.C.Ames, Bottum, Hjorth, Potter, Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Wade, Waltham Machine Works, Wade,  Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Cataract, Hardinge, Elgin, Remington, Sloan & Chace, and Frederick Pearce, etc.
One very important item connected with precision lathe work is the collet, and in 1920 Schaublin bagman manufacturing their own, with production eventually moving to a dedicated plant Delémont. Further expansion of business saw the construction of another factory at Bévilard, a location that was to become the Company's headquarters and to be further extended, in several stages, until 1954. In 1971/2 a new air-conditioned factory was built at Delémont, just a few hundred metres from the original site. In the year 2000 Schaublin were bought out and split into three parts, with three or four Swiss machine-tool dealers (including the well-known 'Muller" Company) buying the one-third that produced conventional lathes together with a section responsible for gears and pinions for the machine-tool industry. Production of other precision machines, machining centres and various other items continued in Bévilard, with a subsidiary also operating in Germany.
Through the 1920s and 1930s the founder of the company, Charles Schaublin, played a personal part in maintaining and improving traditional Swiss quality standards by running the works as a personal fiefdom. He kept a close eye on everything: from the important - the initial designs of new machines and selection of metals - to the mundane, the choice of materials for export packaging.
One early Schaublin model was rather novel, the Type 65, a lathe that, with a 65 mm centre height, was appreciably smaller than the usual bench precision type; this version proved so handy and popular that it continues in production today as the 70 mm centre height Type 70. The earliest complete information available to the writer dates from 1933 - by which time lathe manufacture was well established, with a growing international reputation and increasing export sales. The lathe range of that year consisted of six plain-turning models (suffix numbers refer to the centre height in mm): the SV-8 (short-bed), SV-65, "Jura" (a less expensive  version of the 65), SV-70, SV-90 and SV-102 together with the backgeared and screwcutting SV-150 and SV-130 (the latter built in at least three distinct styles before disappearing from the catalogues in the early 1940s) and a backgeared and screwcutting version of the 102.
In 1941 the SV-120 plain-turning lathe and a screwcutting version, the SV-120-VM, were introduced, the latter mounted on a very heavy cast-iron stand usually with a variable-speed drive system (to expand their appeal, by the 1930s many Schaublin lathes could be supplied on compact stands with built-in drive systems, a development mirrored in America by the leading makers of competing machines). In post-war years the range was expanded to include more modern designs: the 135 and 125 being especially successful. Even the venerable 102-VM (the backgeared and screwcutting version of the 102)  continued until the end of the 20th century - a typical example, from the 1980s, being the superb 102N-VM
Although by the end of WW2 the company had also branched out into the manufacture of larger milling machines, their early models (thought to have been introduced early in 1930, had all been restricted to smaller types, such as the ingenious, miniature ram-head Type SV-11 and the SV-12 horizontal/vertical with its multi-angle swivelling and tilting table - an arrangement not unlike that used on, for example, the well-known German Thiel, Mayo and Deckel models and the Swiss Aciera. The factory also turned out a vast range of collets, a number of small, bench-sensitive drills for use in precision workshops and toolrooms, an automatic multi-head drilling machine for the production of watch plates; a lathe for the finishing of cams used by Swiss autos, drill tap and die sharpeners, moulding machines, automatic gear-tooth rounders, compressors, lapping machines, letter and number stamps and other rather more specialised items such as an automatic multiple drilling machine for watch plates and a tool and cutter grinder dedicated to the sharpening of the "D" bits used in gun-boring lathes. From 1945 onwards (as far as can be established) Schaublin machine tools were to be painted in four different colours: until the late 1950s a green-grey was used - for which no specification exists - and from the 1960s until the late 1970s a blue-grey close to, but not identical with DIN 37020. After that, and running until the early 1990s, a change was made to RAL 6011, a form of the "standard European machine-tool green". More recent colours include a "Machine light-blue" to NCS 1020-R80B - but with fabricated benches painted in a textured finish to RAL 5012 and cast-iron stands in NCS 3030-R90B. As the factory would also finish machines to a customer's specification it is impossible to be categorical as to what is original - but, please don't paint your Schaublin in General Motors Pulsating Primrose…...
Has your Schaublin been rebuilt - and if it has, how do you tell? Reconditioning undertaken by the factory was marked by a plate engraved "BR", followed by a number, for example "79" - this indicating the year of the work, 1979.

Schaublin 65 & 70 Lathes 
Schaublin Models 90, 102 & 102N Plain Lathes
Schaublin 102N-VM   
Schaublin 102-VM   
Schaublin 102 Accessories 
Schaublin 102-VM Photographs   
Schaublin 120-VM
Schaublin 125
Schaublin SV-130 and SV150   
Schaublin 135
Milling Slides & High-speed Heads 
Schaublin milling machines
Schaublin 102 Sliding Headstock Spindle