Lovely old piece of kit

That was typical of lamp production before the 1950s. Each and every step had its own little station.

I have wondered about this before, why was molybdenum used as the mandrel? Is that just the only thing that dissolves readily in some kind of acid that tugsten doesnt?

That tool looks absolutely excellent, I am sure making one of these is not that much of a challenge but making it look like that probably is. That table top looks like chemistry bench epoxy, but I don't know if they had that in the 50s, do you know what it's made of?

I think that table top is made of a resin such as Bakelite or Philite (a proprietary material that was made by Philips back then). As for the use of a molybdenum core wire in the filament coiling process, it is indeed because this metal can be selectively dissolved in the suitable acid.

What acid is used..?

Not sure. I'll need to look it up.