[AT] repairing machined tractor parts

[James Peck]

Several places of employment back, the facility had transitioned from one that made prototype automobile bodies by first casting and machining Kirksite dies. They then put the dies in a press and ran a couple of dozen of each part which were then welded together into the automobile bodies needed for the order. The owner when I was there had kept the hydraulic presses and added more, added electric and gas ovens, robotic welding cells, and laser cells. The zinc foundry had been eliminated. The new product was bake hardened steel stampings with nuts and  reinforcing stampings welded to them and then holes and cutouts, maybe perimeters, cut with the lasers.

A CMM large enough to measure a large tractor was left in place unused and the rest of its room turned into a spare parts crib. I saw that CMM for sale online within the last year, likely still in place.

If you walked outside that plant to the street, you could see the former Massey Ferguson facility.

Greg Hass  AT List Member (ghass at m3isp.com);  Two or three years ago I happened to see the show Jay Leno's Garage. He had the upper thermostat housing and the end where the radiator hose connected from some rare old car where new or used parts didn't exist. 
The part was broke and could not be fixed. They glued it together, it only had to hold itself, and put in a cabinet with a 3D camera. As the part turned the camera took pictures. They then used a 3D printer to make a plastic part of the housing. In turn they used the plastic part to make a foundry mold and then poured it and had an exact part. I'm sure there were other steps involved but you get the idea. Was this way economical? With Jay Leno I doubt if that entered the picture.