A Short history over Högboholms Mekaniska Verkstad
January 2019, revised 2022
I have done some research and there is not much information about the company. I have earlier spoke with Stefan at Scandinavia Turbo och dieselpumpservice, who today own the rights for the mill, as well with Göran Ljungek at Ironbill who today own the right for the lathe. I have also spoke with the grandson (Ulf Cornfors) of the man who once started the company.
Ulf tells me that his grandfather started the company around 1942/43 at the age of 75 years. He had saved 2000 SEK and went to the city Malmö and bought the first machines for Högboholms Mekaniska Verkstad. Unfortunatley he only lived for two more years and his three sons took over the business. They worked under, compare to a complete workshop today, rather primitive conditions and did not own a micrometer so they took the measurs with a caliper and walked with the caliper to a larger workshop nearby (Torpsbruk) to use theire micrometers. God help that peson that had the bad judgement to touch these brothers calipers 🙂
They had a kerosene motor that turned an axle/shaft under the roof and from this axle belts were connected to the machines to give them momentum. The mills, and probably also the lathes, were produced in batches of 20. Once they got an order from Japan for laths, and made I think 25 at the same batch. Jonsered Factory, just outside of Gothenburg, had 10 Högboholm mills. Several machines went down with ships that went on mines after the war, so some machines was lost. They exported to the whole world, but I can not get any numbers for how many machines went for export and how many was sold within Sweden. At one time they sold a number of mills to Russia, and they wanted the machines delivered in parts with all parts marked.
In the 50ties a milling machine went for 3.100 SEK, and in the 70ties a milling machine went for 10.000-11.000 SEK. The company employed 10-12 persons at most. In -59/60 the milling machine got a tiltable head.
From what I’ve been told they made a little over 700 mills during the 15 years of production of the mill type BF-V-59 (1959-1974).
Today Ulf runs the business but is in age to get retired. But he still works with some of his customers and the company today manufacture spare parts for charkeuria machines.
If you own a Högboholm mill or lathe I would like to hear from you! Send me a mail!
Högboholm bench mill, english language pdf – 19,8 MB
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