I get to run some really old machinery at my new job.

We're all journeyman machinists but as far as knowledge and skill go I'm clinging to the bottom rung of the ladder (lots of "old timers" in the shop). We keep things running by making new parts for obsolete/custom (built by our company to serve our specific needs) machinery using old machinery to make the parts. It doesn't make financial sense to outfit the shop with CNC machines so there are currently only 3 out of around 30. The rest are very old manuals.

I'm not complaining, quite the contrary, running those old machines has caused me to develop an affinity for old machinery.

The oldest lathe in the shop is a 42" Bullard that was built in 1917. This machine is very similar to the one in our shop except ours has a taper attachment on the side head and no live tooling motor:

It's driven by a 3" wide 190" long leather belt. While running it I kept wondering who the first person to run it may have been...way back 96 years ago! It's been retrofitted to use an electric motor in place of the "common pulley drive" it was designed to share with multiple machines and the gears in the transmission have been changed to speed the table up a bit so we can use carbide tooling.

We have a few Monarch engine lathes that were built in 1936 and are a lot of fun to run.

We also have a G&L boring mill that was built in 1946 (identical to this one):

That thing is a friggin blast to run! In order to engage rapid or change gears you have to jog the spindle on for a moment while putting pressure on the lever you want to engage until the teeth on the gears grind slightly then finally mesh. If you've ever driven a big truck (18 wheeler) with some hard miles on it, it's similar to shifting one of those.

Just figured I'd hop on the "I love my job!" wagon.

Those lathes are cool. The only place I've seen belt driven machines like that was at the Henry Ford museum. They had an old shop with a belt drive lathe to try. The Wife made a little brass candlestick holder. She thought that was the best part of the trip.

Osborn Mfg in Cleveland Oh (Hamilton Ave) has slots in ceiling for belt drives (long abandoned). Company got its start around 1890. When I worked there they were owned by Giddings & Lewis. They had some WWII surplus machines there.

G&L's and Bullards.... WOW. That live spindle motor is crazy as well.

I did a lot of learning and then work on a belt driven lathe in my fathers shop.

C'mon man, you're making me feel like a dinosaur; I grew up on that stuff.

No live head on a Bullard Mary? HTFU.

In reply to 914Driver:

LOL!

In reply to 914Driver:

We do have a rotary table attachment for the Fadal VMC, though!

My greatest fail was a missed opportunity over 35 years ago. I had the opportunity to buy a complete machine shop with all equipment, tools, jigs, and tooling for $1,200. Yep, the whole shop. Easily in excess of $100K worth of equipment.

It was an antiquated shop of exceptionally great equipment that was out of date, but fully functional.

Every piece of equipment in the shop ran off a single large motor, driven by a series of leather belt drives in the rafters, which were engaged or disengaged by huge wooden levers hanging down from the ceiling.

It felt like you were INSIDE the machine when stuff was running. Totally cool.

The catch was the entire shop had to be moved, including the building. My grandfather offered to give me the money to buy it. I was 16 years old, and did not have the logistical skills to pull it off, and I didn't have a place to move it to. Now, it would be a walk in the park.

Wish I did. My entire life would have been different. I'd have been a machinist.

Grinding device strapped to the turret? Cool.

I was roughing out a breech mech once, taking 5/8" on a side using the lower rail (hand controls on the photo's right side); the chips were perfect circles about 3/4" diameter, hot, smokey and blue all over. I had to duck behind a plexiglass shield to keep from getting hit.

One went over my head, hit the rail behind me and dropped into the back of my safety shoe! All stop, hop around the shop floor until it cooled off; by then it melted itself into my heel and tendon. Removed the shoe and pulled it off my foot with pliers.

Ahhh the memories. Thanx Jed.

In reply to SVreX:

Ouch! I'm kicking myself and I wasn't even there!

Very cool man!

My home lathe still runs a flat belt.

I'm not a machinist, just a rough turner so take this for what it's worth:

By learning manual machines, I feel that you're becoming a real machinist, not just a machine operator.

I use a CNC guy for all my production work, he's about 25 with his own shop.

Every guy I gave a sample to and asked if they could make the part asked me "do you have the program?"

This guy didn't. I give him the item, he writes the program and runs the machine.

If I had the program I would be the guy making it.

Shawn

In reply to Trans_Maro:

Bingo! That's the difference between and operator and a machinist. Well that and one is prone to scrapping parts and wrecking machines but the other is not.

We had some manual machines at the shop where I worked 2 jobs ago. I was there for a little over 4.5 years and I thought a 50's Bullard I ran there was ancient at the time. I also ran a Toshulin SKIQ-12 VTL with live tooling that I absolutely loved. I wish I could have taken it with me when I left.

I was lining up a semi-finished part on the 1917 Bullard last week when quitting time came and went. One of the old timers walked up with a smile and said, "I'm sorry to tell you this but it's time to go home now.".

In reply to 914Driver:

Damn! Sounds painful!

In reply to 914Driver:

.625" D.O.C.?!

What were the speed, feed and material?

I assume steel, but what kind?

I just got a new pair of very nice binoculars for Christmas. I immediately compared them to my 65 year old Zeiss militarys. The old pair are better in every way excepting weight.....

The_Jed wrote: In reply to 914Driver: I assume steel, but what kind?

1. Feed rate is crank it up until it breaks, then back down one.

My Dad was an old school machinist, and my brother is one as well. I'm sure both of them would enjoy running those old machines. Today would have been Dads 83rd birthday.

How does one talk their way into such a job?

While not quite on that scale, I paid for my college education (1961-1966) by setting up and running Brown & Sharpe single spindle screw machines and Warner Swasey #4 turret lathes. Did everything from grinding the tools to running the parts.

Most of the other guys were 2-3 times my age but, my father taught me well.

In reply to Kenny_McCormic:

I got lucky and had just enough experience to get an interview which lead to a written test. I passed the test and was hired. It was basically just right place, right time.

Zombie Thread!

(Also an offshoot of the "I love my job" thread.)

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I was trained on an old G&E manual gear hob. It's rumored that it was built in 1925. It looks pretty similar to this one:

There are two sets of gears in the back that you change to alter the speed at which the table rotates or the feed rate of the head. There are 4 gears in each set (not counting the idler you can pop into the mix to reverse the direction of the table or feed.); a driver gear that drives a driven gear that's connected to another driver (compound driver/driven) that drives another driven gear. I'm explaining it poorly but hopefully you get the idea.

Yesterday I cut a worm gear and today I cut a right-hand helical gear.

I.love.this.job!

Watching it run makes me realize how much I don't know. I can't imagine the intellect of those who designed this machine!

Well, now I can say I've run a grinder. For the past few weeks I've been running a 1950's Norton OD/ID grinder. Abrasive machining is definitely different than cutting metal with an insert, to say the least. I'm getting longer and longer intervals between needing to dress the wheel so I guess I'm learning something.

Dressing the wheel very fast opens up the face for taking big bites. Go slowly across the diamond gives it a finer finish which will load up faster but produce a better finish on the steel.