TREITS STREAMLINER

[jdincau]

Speaking of machining bubble gum you haven't lived until you have machined 1000 aluminum. Not 1050 or 1100, but chemically pure aluminum. It was used as a target in vapor deposition. I think machining bubble gum may have been easier.

How about "Hastelloy" we called it stainless steel lead (combined the worst machining characteristics of both)

[Glen]

Yeah, it's right up there with mallory copper-is  a bitch to machine but great for snagging the part and tossing it across the shop

[Dean Los Angeles]

Oh yeah. 1000 is the bitch on the soft end.

On the hard end Hastelloy, Inconel, Waspalloy, titanium, beryllium . . . blech!

[Peter Jack]

And I can assure you it welds just as ugly as it machines.

Pete

[Bob Drury]

  ... and that's why Red Green and I both depend on Duct Tape (357 only) for all of our major fixes and re-design's.................  if you can't grind it and a farmer can't weld it, you don't want it...................    Bob

[Freud]

Fellows...........I am honored that you have inserted these "facts of machining" in this diary.

Your contributions give this diary some character and present an era that is totally foreign

to the people that have grown up with CNC, digital measurements and someone providing the proper

material for the "modern machinist" to make a show piece. Men who did not serve an apprenticeship

under a "hard boiled" old master machinist have no idea what the roots of their profession contain.

Overhead shafts, belts that clicked everytime they went over a flat surfaced pulley, the same shaft

system driving the drill press, the shaper, the lathe and if they were lucky a milling machine. Oh yes,

I forgot the forge that heated  tool steel so they could form a tool bit from Rex AAA.  

(Was that the most common tool bit material?) Then when carbide bits cost $50 each, everyone had to

smuggle a few home for his own shop. What memories !! They bring me to tears.

I don't ever see anyone with a boring bar turned upside down cutting a thread on the inside

of a piece of tubing with the chuck rotating in the direction opposite from normal.

Goats milk for the lubricant and white lead on the center of the tail stock.

I guess they don't have to do things like that now days.

Any mistakes in this piece shall go uncorrected. Our machinists for 1930 to 1946 had one duty and that was to

get things done anyway possible to support our troops whose ships and airplanes gave them an advantage that

helped end WW II. They made mistakes but they made them work someway. Function overpowered beauty.

I am honored to be surrounded by this audience and am willing to be corrected anytime by anyone..

FREUD

I'll check on the hinge on the chute tube and report back on it.

[Dean Los Angeles]

I'm pretty sure I found pictures of Freud's machine shop.




Ok, so it might be the 1910 machine shop from the Mt Wilson observatory. Still functional. In case you are not familiar with the workings, and VERY pre-OSHA the belts drive from the shaft in the ceiling and you hooked the belts on and off the pulleys for the on/off switch. The belts never stopped. 125DC motor. You oughta see the generator! Also still working.

[Freud]

It's way to modern.

We had incandescent bulbs not fluorescent tubes.

There was a soothing cadence to those belts as they went clickety clickety all day long.

FREUD

[jdincau]

I dont go back that far Doc. but I did learn to run both a shaper and a planer in my 4 years as an apprentice tool and die maker.

[Freud]

My introduction to a machine shop started when I was 6 years old. I could do anything that was possible

when I supplied the power by pulling on the belt that drove the lathe. After I graduated a little I learned

to cut threads. My Dad was very patient and quite proud of my progress. When he bought a 150 AMP

Lincoln welder I wore a helmet, sat between his legs and watched how to strike an arc and it progressed

to my first bead with his hands guiding my hands. I couldn't bail when the pis_ers bounced off my bare arms.

Fleetweld 5 and Fleetweld 7 made by Lincoln as I remember.. One straight polarity and the other reverse polarity.

That's possible with a DC machine. No buzz boxes in our shop.

Seems like yesterday.

FREUD

[4-barrel Mike]

Interesting.  The last one I was around was much more modern (and smaller).  All the power ran thru a Ford Model A transmission which gave the operator 3 speeds and neutral.

Mike

[Freud]

That's amazing. A variable speed system for the entire shop is pretty hi tech.

Generally the machine had a set of stages on the drive and that was how

the speeds were varied like the foto that Dean posted.

Thanks for your contribution.

FREUD

[Tman]

Interesting.  The last one I was around was much more modern (and smaller).  All the power ran thru a Ford Model A transmission which gave the operator 3 speeds and neutral.

Mike

I have the parts to do mine. Model A tranny, belt driven drill press, looking for a lathe to hook to the whole operation!

[Peter Jack]

Trent, it's not complete till you add a shaper. They're a very useful tool, fun to watch and almost hypnotic. 

Pete

[Freud]

Remember the clapper box? I think that was the name of the tool carrier.

Our shaper wasn't big but it did a lot of work.

FREUD