Shop Truths, Phrases, Tales; and Outright Lies

[Frank S]

Many years ago or I should say more than half a dozen decades ago I began a trek what this trek was or where it might carry me I had no awareness. I wasn't even aware of being on a trek. For years I have told the story of my starting out in the world of labor as a humble beginnings at a blacksmith shop at the tender age of 11. However through the passage of time I realize I actually started much younger than that. Nearly a decade younger as difficult as one's comprehension of a boy as young as 1 or 2 years of age actually being the beginning of their life long career. However this is actually true at least I believe it to be true. That one can be set on a path which would be the path they follow throughout their lives.
These are by no means my own memories that I am about to share but the telling's of my parents and friends of theirs who knew them when I was still in nappies.
You see my mother worked my Grandfather worked my grandmother kept house both theirs and the houses of others. Obviously my dad worked as well. and it was he who took care of me during the day while at his job much of the time since my mother could not care for me at her job far too dangerous to have a baby crawling around at a drycleaners with the chemicals and live steam presses everywhere.
Now you might ask what kind of job my dad had that allowed him to care for an infant Well he was a mechanic not the movie portrayal of a mechanic like Charles Bronson or Jathan Stathan though being a retired gunny sgt he certainly could have qualified as one had he chose to. No he was an automobile and truck mechanic, and what he would do was to make a pallet of an old wool blanket on the floor for me then give me items like carburetors distributors and tools to play with. I am told and I believe a still living Aunt of mine has a few pictures of me playing with my toys. This lasted for several well maybe not several but a few years. I do think that I remember my dad tossing a guy out of his shop because he had drug me off of the blanket or maybe I was old enough at the time by then that I had wandered off the blanket to get some tool that a guy had picked up from it I was probably around 3 ish I guess by then. I'm sure I pretty much had the run of the place but was always told to stay on the blanket to play with the toys OK most of you guys had children's toys to play with mine were car or engine parts and tools.
Skip forward a couple years And this I do remember. Why do I remember it because it was my first visit to a dentist I had knocked a tooth out and my mouth was bleeding So pop had to carry me to see the big guy wearing a white jacket. while sitting in the chair I was staring at a picture on his wall of an airplane and a man in uniform standing by it.
That's my son and that is the plane that he fly's he said.
Oh I said. I bet I can make one of those. Mind you I'm not yet 5 years old, The dentist just laughed and said that I have to see. I went to the mechanics shop once in a while with my dad and there is no pallet any more but a table and chair for me to work on the carburetors only now I'm taking them apart and putting them back together obviously not the ones pop is going to be re installing on a car. The next day at the shop I grab a pair of snips and some card board and some wire and nails I sat down and cut out what I thought the shape of the DC3 in the picture looked like then bent the cardboard into a cylindrical shape made wings rolled some cardboard to look like the engines wired everything together. By the time my stitches were due to come out I carried that plane with me..
Skip forward 20 odd years After leaving the Army I take the wife and kids on a trip down memory avenue we drive to Austin I show her and my girls the hospital where I am told I was born. my oldest had one of those little Kodak 110 cameras and was snapping away taking pictures of the sights and the capital I told her she should save some of her film because there might be something she really wanted to get a picture of but what to 6 year olds know? Today with the cameras in every phone that can hold a zillion pictures that wouldn't be a problem LOl
anyway we drive by a dentistry. I wonder if that is the same place where I had to go as a kid I asked so on a whim I decided to stop and inquire sure enough it was and there on a wall was a picture of the cardboard plane next to the guy picture in the plane. I asked one of the nurses if the model still existed.
No she said at least she didn't think it did.
My oldest daughter is furious because she had just ran out of film and didn't have another roll.
Skip forward a few more years I am designing and building a drilling rig while working for a guy he breaks off a bolt on his motorcycle and starts to drill it out I tell him that I can get it out without risking damage to the threads. SO I grab a stinger and a nut then weld the nut to the bolt and remove it. Where did you learn that trick?
at the blacksmith shop I used to work at as a kid about 15 years ago I told him.
Skip forward a few more years I perfected the art of removing broken bolts broke off deep down in the holes while working on cat equipment. I say perfected I must have removed close to a 1000 bolts like that over the years but sometimes I would mount an assembly in a mill and mill out the bolts leaving only the Dutchman (just the threads)
The day before yesterday my neighbor calls me up before I have finished my first cup of morning coffee.
Frank my brother can you help me out?
I don't know you haven't told me what it is yet.
I've been 2 days trying to get this bolt out of a hydraulic pump. I've managed to weld out 3 of them with the stud puller rod but 1 I can't get.
I'll be over in a couple minutes.
Coffee cup in hand I show up at his place a mile away. Yeah I think I can salvage it for you but you have already done a lot of damage to the housing at least you haven't gotten into the o ring seat though so it will still be OK.
His customer is standing there and as we really need this thing as soon as possible if it can be fixed I'm the one who drilled and ground into the housing Billy took out the other 3 bolts for me.
Ok so you are the bad guy here I said.
Yeah and we can't get a new pump for a couple of weeks.
I bring the pump back to my place and set up my mill they have already do so much damage I didn't dare try and weld out the bolt my mill is just tall enough to get the pump under an end mill and only that because I had one that I bought at auction that had been sharpened a few times.
Anyway I get it repaired around dark Billy and he show up early the next morning to pick it up.
then lo and behold Billy calls me again this morning the same guy who I found out is a mechanic for a company has something else with broken bolts in it .
What are they doing with their equipment I asked using them for battering rams Billy just laughs and says I'm not even going to try to get these bolts out Mike has already drilled them and broken off an ezeout and I have to be somewhere else can you or will you take a look at it for him. Yeah tell him to bring it by I'll see what I can do.
2 hours later the bolts are out and Mike is happy I hope next week is not a repeat.