Some heavy metal machining

George,

Not a machinist/mechanic myself, but the way that folks have learned to work on that scale is always fascinating. I get to watch a bit of it at work - a hydro-electric dam with 18 turbines. Watching the hydro mechanics take wire mike reads to locate the centers of holes for wicket gate shafts prior to line boring them is pretty cool. Way more patience than I have, thats for sure!

Monte
 
Some time ago, I found a catalog of the 1923 British machine tool expo, which had a couple of rigs in it I admired.

One was a lathe that took a steam train drive axle with wheels, spun her up with a flat belt & recut the flanges on the 2 wheels simultaneously. The other was a lathe to turn prop shafts for ships. The machinist sat in a cage on the saddle over the job - crazy!
 
yes that is big stuff

My dad used to tell me stories as he worked in the shipyards in the US in the 40's, where he would take his lunch and go up 2 sets of stairs to get on this giant lathe to get the carriage, it took a crane to set the tool bits in place, he was telling me this one operation where he was threading a propeller shaft, when he got close a crane would bring up the nut and there a powered winch of some type with a steel cable wrapped around the nut if the nut would not go on all the way the clutch would slip on the winch, then they would take the nut off and he would make another cut till it fit, there many a good story, he was a toolmaker and machinist, I sure miss him, but I followed his footstep and went on to be a mech. engineer in the same field.

Chet
 
Jackie Schmitt has posted some pictures of his shop in the past. He has some iron setting on the floor that would definitely get your attention when you walk through the door. Maybe he'll repost them here?

Jim
 
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