Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Helped My Machinist Neighbor

That’s my neighbor.

Laughing!

Just the RT shipping must have been special!

He has a build thread going and listed all the foibles of this process, and things that in retrospect should have been decided differently.

On the plus side, he really enjoys rehabbing old iron; there just is little to no profit.

If you're all inclined - watch ABomb79 on youtube. Machinist in the Florida panhandle area.

Not so much machine refurbishing but he tends to use older stuff like G&E shapers and Monarch lathes - does some interesting work.

I've got two Bridgeports, two South Bend 13" lathes, and a Storm-Vulcan crankshaft grinder that all need the same sort of rehab. I'm hoping to get my grandson set up in an automotive machine shop before I get too old and feeble to mentor him.
Jerry

Super cool!

Machines most people never see:

Link

Turning & milling all the big iron.

Moved a bunch of these big old machines and got to talk to many of the old pre WW2 machinist still working way after they could have retired. Weren't no CNC, and just loading the machines required quite a bit of man-handling.

A lot of people don't realize that a lot if not most of the machines used in ordinance and war production is actually owned by the government. And when not being used it was moved into government storage such as up in the bay area at Rough and Ready Island. Waiting another job and being moved into another plant.


Phil

Thanks Phil.

Phil are you a rigger?

I was, retired now.

Phil

Very cool !

One thing I've always noticed about these old machinist... nearly all had huge hands, scared, swollen, and tough as leather. All this was way before OSHA, and any safety equipment. These guy's seldom had gloves, constantly had their hands soaked in chemicals and cut by chips. They'd wrap a cut hand in an old cloth and never consider shutting the machine down.


Phil

Not really. Big, heavy lathes are extremely rigid. The more rigid a machine tool is, the better. One could put a digital readout and a Royal brand 5C collet closer on that big lathe and do some seriously close work with it.

I have a couple of online friends who got involved with rebuilding some big geared head lathes a few years ago,..and they did them up right.

I tried to convince them to put digital readouts and collet closers on them but they cost a bit of money and they considered them un-necessary luxuries. But they're more than that. Those big, heavy lathes are capable of holding very tight tolerances, but it's hard to get real close with them using the dial's increments. Holding .0002" tolerance with a digital readout equipped lathe becomes matter of fact once you learn to allow for heat expansion of the workpiece.

Digital readouts typically display 4 decimal places and they read directly from the position of the saddle and cross slide.

The collet closers allow you to hold very small diameter workpieces very concentric.

Had to read that twice

We moved this machine along with the entire plant shipping most to Canada, back east, and parts all over the world.

[Linked Image]

Link

The old Harvey Aluminum / Martin Marietta plant that used to be in the Los Angeles strip of Torrance, CA

Some good old stories on moving this machine.

Weighed 8 million + pounds.



Phil

You’re familiar with Schaffer grinding then. That’s who worked on this and the other pieces that were sent.

Some what, was on that job the better part of 3 years, this was way back in '74 and '75. I remember once we had the machine all dissembled and out, they wanted me to go down into the pit and burn a hole in the steel plates lining the pit. I refused saying that I'd take a mag-drill down and drill a hole. They wanted to find out if there was any oil or solvent under the plate. They sent someone else down into that 15' deep pit with a ladder and a cutting torch. Pit burst into flames shooting all the way to the roof. How the guy got out of it alive was a miracle. Believe it was old JR. Bowman.

Phil

Great web site, talented guy, got lost going through that for a bit....

And does a paintball-ish daily webcomic as well. Whiteboard.com