An old machine shop (and much more)

[Niehart]

It doesn’t get any better than this, folks.

Who needs CAD? A stick and some dirt work just fine. Take a few moments and watch this. American Heartland.

Real work, keep it simple, get the job done with pride and quality. Remember, Take the time in your life to stop and "have a Dr. Pepper (soda pop) and some peanuts".

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BckZ4i1BzF0?feature=player_embedded

 

[canucklehead-biker]

Thanks for sharing that, it reminded me so much of the small shops I grew up around that just don't exist anymore.

Griff

 

[wnyfjr]

That was awesome, to see three generations working together. There's something to be said for the slower days!

 

[Fred W]

Yeah, me too. Thanks for the link.

I sure wish it was like this a whole lot more places today.

 

[FJRay]

That's very similar to the machine shop at the boat yard where I worked in Wa. right down to the flat belts and line shafts. Cool stuff I miss it.

 

[garauld]

I worked with a young engineer a couple years ago. I told him his part could be made on a Bridgeport. What's that? Unfortunately, I think that's an all too common answer these days.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Full House]

I worked with a young engineer a couple years ago. I told him his part could be made on a Bridgeport. What's that? Unfortunately, I think that's an all too common answer these days.Thanks for the link.

from my days in the tool and die shop, if you had a bridgeport with a rotary table, you could make most anything.

 

[Panman]

Spent the first 12 13 years of being a machinist booming around building tooling, ran lots of old crap in the small shops a lot that had been converted from the old line shops. Every shop always had a decent Bridgeport and still one of my favorite machines. I remeber this one shop that had this 1880's or 90's Bridgeport and I hated that thing as the bed was only two feet long and more tired than my dead grand father, still made some pretty cool dam it's on that thing.

Ten fiften years ago they put me out to pasture doing breakdown work at the cigar fatory, sometimes I miss the floor..

 

[majicmaker]

Reminds me of my first job. That shop was like the main hangar where all the heavy stuff got made to keep WWII amphibious dinosaurs flying that there were no parts for. We had to make them ourselves. No fancy tools. A good hammer and a decent set of bucking bars were all you needed to finish the parts off and go fly. Boy, do I miss that stuff.

 

[CraigRegs]

Terrific piece. A vanishing bit of America. Thanks for sharing.

 

[08FJR4ME]

Thanks for the time capsule. I remember those days long ago. In contrast this is some of the stuff I did today. While I sit here on the computor I am having parts being made 24 hrs a day by the machine I setup before I left work today. I do the programming for our Direct metal laser sintering machines at my work.



Dave

 

[bwv]

Great Link! I love that stuff.

I'm a network specialist for a couple of small k-12 Schools, one of them is the school I went to... Tiny school, maybe 400 kids k-12 when i went there 360 now.

The guy who was my shop teacher, who is one of my really good freinds (and a Triumph Bonneville guy...) tought us about machining tolerences and fits, cutter angles, tempering metals, etc..We made metal tool boxes with a shear and break, screwdrivers, ball peen hammers on a metal lathe, we made sand molds and poured molten metal into them... etc.

The Bridgeport mill that was there when I was a kid (I'm 42 now...) is still sitting there in a corner. No one knows how to run it now... It has not been touched in 20 years. (I can't wait til they surplus and auction it...)

Now the kids build balsa wood bridges and paper airplanes... and scratch at AutoCad a little...

It's kinda sad to see those arts dissapear over the horizon.

 

[C&C]

Great link, thanks. My Dad owned and operated a small machine shop for forty years (I worked summers there during college, late '60's); brought back memories.

 

[dcarver]

Excellent post, Pops!

 

[Old Guy]

Very nice, Niehart. That'll be bookmarked for sure and passed along to a buncha folks I know.

 

[Bounce]

Worked as a machine tool operator for a couple of years after an agency vo-tech session. Never a machinist or a tool & die man, but enough day-to-day to respect those who are/were. Seeing as how it was refreshing jet engines, the tollerances were a skosh tighter than auto builds of the day. Lathes and end mills mostly; wanted to avoid the big VTLs since they like to snatch a man. Same reason I was glad to have started after the belt drives were gone.

 

[FredandJeannesRacer]

Dad and granddad were machinist, as I am.

Although things have changed since their day,

I still enjoy my job.

Great vid.

 

[Old Guy]

So, when he reached in that box for the soda pops, how many of you half expected him to pull out 6 ounce glass bottles like I did?

 

[HaulinAshe]

I grew up (literally) in my Dad's machine shop. We had a couple leather belt driven machines in the 60s. Nothing was computerized except him, and they still haven't made a computer to match what he could do.

When the NC textile industry pulled up stakes and moved to Japan and China, we didn't follow. The machines and my Dad stayed put until he passed away.

I've recently re-occupied the old shop. All the machines are gone. Names like Bridgeport, Brown & Sharpe and Miller are still etched in my memory. Other kids drank KoolAid, I consumed Mr. Kool Tool via osmosis. Pushing a broom across the old shop floor sure made me miss him and those Father-to-Son lessons.

Thanks for the link old friend.