Shop Truths, Phrases, Tales; and Outright Lies

[C-Bag]

This all staggers the imagination. I don't think one picture is going to be able to convey everything. It's hard enough to do it with our small offerings much less something of this scope. This and Frank's Van Norman truck/bus brake lathe can only be encompassed by imagination or direct observation probably. What did they DO on this Niles Heavy Duty Planer Mill? And please, no "anything they wanted". Any pics of things made on it? And something so massive it threw machines around it off? Did it throw gravity waves instead of swarf? So it had to be electronically controlled.....what time frame are we talking about here? Was it punch cards or? Did they make tank chassis out of billets of steel? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Paul Jones]

ToolMaker51 and C-Bag,

I had to use the Google search for images to see what a Niles Heavy Duty Planer Mill looked like and wow are these massive. No wonder these need a very heavy concrete pad. Like C-Bag said, what did they machine on these lathes?

I have had limited exposure to large machine tools. My friend whose company makes very large capacity water pumps (some are 200,000 gallons per minute) installed a 72" swing Fanuc CNC vertical lathe with 48 tool selection and a secondary axis with another 24 tool selection. The machine arrive on four 18 wheelers and the largest machine section weighed 20,000 lbs. It has a lot of refrigeration gear to keep the machine at a constant temperature to maintain tolerances. When machining it has two large chip conveyor belts to carry away the massive amount of chips it produces. I know they poured a special floor to support the machine and built a safety interlock so the 25 ton overhead gantry cranes wouldn't crash into the top of the Fanuc when fully extended. This is the same shop that has a MacIntosh-Hemphill lathe (they raised the headstock, cross slide and tailstock for larger swing) originally used to machine the 16" guns for WWII battleships. I have to visit the MacIntosh-Hemphill lathe every time I tour their shop because it is a machine that you just don't see in most shops. Who needs stairs to operate their tailstocks?

[MeJasonT]

How big is the lathe that has to turn the chuck/faceplates for a MacIntosh-Hemphill lathe, its just to massive to comprehend. The lathe that makes the lathe that made it would be even bigger, do you see where i'm going with this. I have a friend who is a partner in Lawson Engineers in Cumbria who build large winch's for the offshore/submersible industry, I can remember Lawson's making there own gap bed to turn a long centre shaft. on this particular lathe they had to take out a section of the workshop wall to get the completed winch drum outside. How is That for thinking on your feet, you just don't say no to customers when you are a small business.

[Toolmaker51]

Uh, that's a lot of questions! Which I'll enjoy responding to.
Going to try another scanner that's available, or digitize them via camera. This auction pleased me no end to be a part of, and retained the auction catalog, sometimes use as bait part of my resume, when attending interviews.

That cues a favorite sort of image. No matter how large a machined part is...an equivalent or larger machine made IT. It finally gets to where gigantic items are assembled. But they still need transportation and rigging so elements become useful assemblies.
Same auction had a variety of bridge cranes. Largest in catalog is 50 ton, 78' 8" span. No control hanging from a pendant; a vertical ladder provided access to operator's cab. 6 way movement, double girders and most had a second smaller hoist to suspend and manipulate workpieces. All were sold. A very well known machinery mover disassembled each on site. Their forklifts had 4 hydraulic posts, one at each corner of the chassis, joined by a platen above the operator. Using at least two, one under each end of girder, they'd lower it so conventional forklifts could load trailers. I recall a couple of those double gooseneck rigs, with something like 126 road tires, [yes one hundred twenty-six].

One capability of planer's is making forming dies for press brakes. There was an IMMENSE Pacific; 1500 ton and 23' long platen/ die holder. I'm sure that it could manage additional length beyond the ends for lighter material, seems the upper [moving side] was 4" thick.
I'm compelled to get a scanner for you guys, HAVE to. This is going to be fun!

[C-Bag]

Yup, and I had to throttle my questions because I was going into thermal runaway. I'm glad MeJasonT asked the one I pinched it off with. Regular folks like my SO are blown away you need machines to make machines. It's just all outside of their experience. But machine tools of this size that like the one Paul posted that look suspiciously like a diesel train engine are way outside my experience.

Good one Paul. And I always wondered where and how they turned those 16" guns on battleships.

[MeJasonT]

This is worth a look

[Toolmaker51]

This is worth a look

If they were to do a layout; it'd be Dykem in a pressure washer

I don't recall mentioning how I ended up champing at the bit literally ''...to be a machinist".
It was a family vacation; about 7 years of age, a long road trip. No idea where we were before or headed to, but we stopped at Hoover Dam, basically right next to Las Vegas, Nevada. The tour went through much of the interior. Sheer Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal immensity, so I was getting pretty lit up.
Two areas dealt considerable excitement; the turbine room, and especially the machine shop. Everything field-day spotless, brightly lit, and roughly 700 feet below the roadway on the dam connecting Arizona and Nevada. I'm quoting, but it isn't precise. Anyway, I asked tour guide "...how they get them down here?". "Well this part of the dam was built around them...". "yeah, but how did they get them down here?" There was a huge engine lathe, a shaft lathe, not oilfield style. Probably an Axelson, American, Monarch, or Lodge & Shipley. My fantasy says American Pacemaker.
It was and impression it made remain the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen; [save a few human females]. From then on, normal kids said fireman, policeman, doctor, scientist, politician, network analyst, write suicide clauses for insurance policies...when asked ''whadyya gonna do when you grow up"?
Not me. First it was just machinist, began studying it evolved becoming Toolmaker after reading bio on John M. Browning, around 11 years old.
Still no cure has been found, with additional side side effects. Intermingling vocation, career & avocation, tool acquisition syndrome, cast iron dependency, mental maps highlighting salvage yards, rustyitemitus at yard sales [running past moo-moos, baby bottles, and non-engineering textbooks], distracted driving while rigged loads pass. Most severe cases have cantwaitformonday, and overtimehellyes, generally income is a requirement of the disease, in pursuing a continual fix. And all those make me happy!
Hey Frank S, same for you? I know C-Bag's got it...Like our milk cartons with missing kids, HMT.net has nearly 15,000 poster-kids.

[C-Bag]

LOL, amen brother. Hi, I'm C-Bag and I am an addict.

TAS is never under control or curable. I laughed out out at several of your symtoms, so true, so true.

What's funny I just got back from breakfast and while we were in the little town across the bay my SO spotted a estate sale. 99 out of 100 times they are a total dud with the aforementioned moo moo's and little old lady bric a brac but being the good egg I am I gave in. I was immediately attracted to the garage and there were actually some tools. I spied some old oil cans and was checking them out when SO said hey, is this something. I only looked the the price and saw $100 so it was already relegated to the resistible column. But it was a complete set of threading dies, something I'd been on the lookout, and actually was a good price, but still resist able. One of the oil cans didn't work right and I noted this to the guy running the sale and he said, well it's the last day and everything is 50% off.....everything? Yes....oh oh. So he said he'd throw in the two cans,,,, such a deal, $50.

[C-Bag]

This is another set I got off CL, maybe not such a steal but most of the reamers were still in their wax paper. Obviously off a ship and $120, was missing two reamers, but otherwise all there.i can't for some reason upload the pic of the list of all the reamers, but what is showing its only the top tier.

[Toolmaker51]

Greenlee Tap and Die Plate; just great cutters, best diestocks & tap wrenches ever made, is all.
And need be, use them to make old lady bric-a-brac. It'll sure never happen ta-otha-wayround. Then the SO will get it.
I do like that the two of you are referred to in the posts; oddly a facet of whatever homemade success is. Also tickled that symptoms, while having madeup names are so real. Making them up got laughs at this end too. Forgot one; about cash. That's a flurry of moths escaping an open wallet.