[AT] OT: non-tractor covid-19 activates

Cecil Bearden crbearden at copper.net
Fri Apr 3 18:26:05 PDT 2020


The last time that big lathe was used was to bore some big oilfield 
engines.  They centered the block on the 4 jaw chuck and bored it!!   It 
came from an old oilfield machine shop in OKC. The Berco crank grinder 
also came from the oil patch.  It will grind  about an 8ft long crank..  
Right now, I need to shove a lot of junk out of the buildings and get 
something working..   I have so many projects that got stopped either 
due to lack of parts, money, or time.

On 4/3/2020 7:38 PM, John Hall wrote:
> Believe it or not, there are some guys that like to collect older 
> machine shop equipment. Shapers seem to gather a lot of attention on 
> Facebook. Those and belt drive equipment were signs of a shop to run 
> away from when I started this trade.
>
> Those big lathes are either a curse or a blessing. Our TOS will go 
> around 30" with the gap out. There have been times we could have used 
> bigger. Normally it collects dust, firing up 2-3 times a year. It 
> pulled about a 3 week stint last summer.
>
> John Hall
>
> On 4/3/2020 12:01 PM, Cecil Bearden wrote:
>>
>> After Ithought a little, I forgot about the 48x120 gap bed lathe, the 
>> 24in shaper, the 12x36 surface grinder and the other one sitting 
>> outside that was dropped off a forklift at the shippers.  I have a 
>> 36in Yates American Bandsaw that a forklift operator dropped while 
>> loading.  It was one the Navy owned during WWII that sawed the 
>> decking for ships.  I have another 36in that I need to try to get 
>> working.   I also have a 40 ton horn press.  in addition to the 40 
>> ton ironworker. and a Warner swasey #2 turret lathe, and somewhere 
>> around here is an old screw machine.  There is a couple of multiple 
>> spindle drills and all manner of old machines....  There are not very 
>> many young folks that know how to operate these old machines.  Just 
>> not a lot of demand for one-off repair work either..  Both old guys 
>> that were my teachers in my machine work are now gone..
>>
>> On 4/3/2020 10:46 AM, Stephen Offiler wrote:
>>> I was just out on the factory floor and noticed one of the CNC's was 
>>> about to hit a bar change, and figured I'd try to capture a video of 
>>> the whole thing.  It starts with a quick overview of the CNC and the 
>>> bar feeder sitting at idle.  Then it shows the part being made, 
>>> which is the handle of our double-ended machinist scribe.  Then I 
>>> fire it up to make the last possible part before the bar is 
>>> effectively consumed, then we see a part being made, although it is 
>>> kind of hard to see due to the coolant splash.  Then it does the bar 
>>> change, consisting of pulling back the "remnant" (the end of the bar 
>>> that's now too short to make another part) while dropping a new 12' 
>>> bar, engaging it, and feeding it into the machine to continue 
>>> automatic operation.
>>>
>>> https://youtu.be/uy57CqHdicg
>>>
>>>
>>> SO
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 10:27 AM Stephen Offiler <soffiler at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:soffiler at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Wow, Cecil, that's quite an equipment list!  Some big heavy
>>>     stuff on that list!  The only manual machining I do is making
>>>     little tools, jigs & fixtures, and "my" shop here at work has
>>>     just one (very nice) Hardinge HLV-H "Super Precision" lathe, a
>>>     2J-head Bridgeport, a Kent 6x18 grinder, and a DoAll bandsaw.
>>>     The magic is always in the accessories; the 5C collets and the
>>>     4-jaw chuck for the Hardinge, the R8 collets for the mill, the
>>>     various precision vises and other workholding for mill &
>>>     grinder, indexing heads, and a whole compliment of cutters,
>>>     drills, taps, wheels, etc etc.
>>>
>>>     Oh and I do owe you a response on the ESAB plasma cutter. 
>>>     Unfortunately, it's a pass.  Sorry.  We have this one job we're
>>>     developing now that involves making rather precise cuts, but
>>>     we're already down that road with a chop-saw that's working
>>>     quite well.  We just do basically zero with sheet material most
>>>     suited for plasma.
>>>
>>>     SO
>>>
>>>     On Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 9:54 AM Cecil Bearden
>>>     <crbearden at copper.net <mailto:crbearden at copper.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>         I planned to open a machine shop when I retired..  However,
>>>         here in OK
>>>         there is not much demand and the only jobs I had were making
>>>         some
>>>         decorating crap for some traveling vendors.  The biggest job
>>>         was wire
>>>         forming for some Potpourri Pie holders.  I had to build a
>>>         jig to bend
>>>         the handles with an air cylinder and rack and pinion. Then I
>>>         had to roll
>>>         a ring and weld it together with m spot welder then spot
>>>         weld the rings
>>>         to the handles  The handles were also the feet to hold it
>>>         above the
>>>         stove burner.  I lost the pics of it.  I had a 20KW spot
>>>         welder and had
>>>         traded for a 10hp Variable frequency driver and motor from a
>>>         technical
>>>         school.  I dropped the amperage with the variable frequency
>>>         drive to
>>>         keep from burning the wires up.  The wires were about 3/16 dia.
>>>         It was fun for a while, then I felt like I was wasting my
>>>         talents on
>>>         crap...  Machine shops were  closing down here to send jobs
>>>         offshore.
>>>         So, I have a building with a 36x120 lathe, a 16x84 lathe, a
>>>         9x40 lathe,
>>>         a Cincinnati Mill with a 16x72 table and universal head, 
>>>         2ea Kearney
>>>         Trecker mills with universal heads, another later model
>>>         Cincinnati
>>>         overarm mill with a 16 x 72 table, A Bridgeport, a couple of
>>>         knee mills
>>>         one Japanese, the other old old US made.  I did one job with
>>>         the newer
>>>         Cincinnati overarm making T-nuts for a big holding table. 
>>>         Now they just
>>>         sit in case I need to make a part for my old junk. Then I
>>>         was going to
>>>         build industrial engines, and bought the boring bars, head work
>>>         equipment and a big big crank grinder.  Never got the crank
>>>         grinder set
>>>         up.  It is still on a trailer and a stray tornado took out
>>>         the building
>>>         it was stored under.
>>>         Cecil
>>>
>>>         On 4/3/2020 7:01 AM, Mark Johnson wrote:
>>>         > Hey - no problem with the CNC talk, at least not from me.
>>>         I've been a
>>>         > software guy all my life but I find machining absolutely
>>>         fascinating -
>>>         > wish I had learned more about it! I'm learning now...
>>>         >
>>>         > Mark J
>>>         >
>>>         > Columbia, MO
>>>         >
>>>         > On 4/3/2020 5:38 AM, Stephen Offiler wrote:
>>>         >> Hi John -
>>>         >>
>>>         >> Hope the list will tolerate some CNC banter. We have 1
>>>         job that we
>>>         >> hold close, using .0001" offsets; all the rest it would
>>>         be more like
>>>         >> .0005" or more.  Swiss excels in small precise stuff and
>>>         also long
>>>         >> slender stuff, and we are heavy on the latter. Don't need
>>>         all that
>>>         >> precision, but it's handy to have:  I can give the guys
>>>         setup sheets
>>>         >> with .XXX" dimensions and no tolerance, and they can hit
>>>         the numbers
>>>         >> dead-on quite easily. Keeps me from having to even think
>>>         about
>>>         >> tolerances which is quite a luxury for an engineer.
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