Funny to read the reference to "one man band" in this thread about an old punch press. There is (or was) a factory in the western part of NY State that made "Kazoos"- the tin "musical instrument" that kids played years ago before electronics took over.This factory was line-shaft driven into the modern era, though "OSHA-ized" with guards and all the safety features added to the presses. They were stamping out kazoos using the same designs they'd used forever.
When I saw the press in this thread, my first thought was "finger factory". Years ago, when I was working out in Ohio (1975), I first heard the term "finger factory". Seems some fellow was speaking about his sister, whom he said "had a good job, she's foreman at the finger factory". Being new to the area, I had no idea what he meant and asked about. Turned out his sister was a foreman in a metal stamping plant. The plant turned out small stamped parts for the automotive industry (kelsey-Hayes brakes, I think). There plants were referred to in that part of the midwest as "finger factories" since press operators occasionally lost a finger feeding the presses. The severed finger, if running blanking or trimming dies, usually wound up in the bin under the press, often with the finished parts. Hence the name. How, in 1975, with safeguards on the presses, people were still losing fingers to punch presses is something I never found out. I knew that in the USA, by the 1920's, punch presses were being fitted with assorted safeguards such as cuffs which pulled the operators hands back and clear before the press would operate, or with guards that were interlocked with the clutch pedal.
When I saw this oldtime punch press, all I could think of was the kazoo factory (since this press is out in the Rochester, NY area), and "finger factory". The unguarded press also revived a memory I have not thought of since about 1970, when I was an undergraduate. In college, lots of us worked all sorts of jobs to help pay tuition. I worked in machine shops, and soon found one of my classmates also worked in a machine shop. My classmate described it as a small tool and die shop that had a few presses. This was during the Vietnam war, and many smaller shops were getting subcontract defense work. My classmate said this shop was kind of a sketchy or shady operation, but it was a shop job, no questions asked as to anyone's legal status in the USA, and not bad pay. The shop my classmate worked in was one step up from a shop in someone's garage behind their house. As my classmate told it, this was a back-alley operation, and he did not ask questions and was paid in cash. The owner was a recent immigrant who knew how to hustle, and his workforce was a mixed group of very recent immigrant from Eastern Europe, a couple of Turkish fellows, and some South Americans. My classmate was a recent immigrant from Israel (applying for citizenship in the USA), who came to the US to study engineering, and fitted right in with this group. Since he could speak English better than the boss, along with German, Hebrew and Rumanian, and read drawings and had some machine shop skills (having attended a technical high school in Israel), he was put on actual machine work. The boss was delighted to have someone who knew his way around machine tools and could communicate in several languages as well as making a good drawing and figuring how to do jobs. The presses were running jobs stamping some belt buckle parts for parachute harnesses. The spec called for a very thorough deburring job along with radius's on some of the surfaces, so the Eastern European guys spent their days using pillar files to file radius' on various parts of the buckles. The Turks were running the presses, which, according to my classmate, had no safeguards on them. As my classmate told it, he was using one of the machine tools in the "toolroom", when one of the Turks appeared with a shop rag soaked in blood around his hand. He looked at my classmate and in broken English said: "My finger-gone". My classmate got the boss, who did not bat an eye. He looked around the press and found the severed finger, picked it up and put it in a paper cup and got someone to run the Turk over to the hospital. Whether they reattached the finger or not, I never found out. The boss simply grabbed another recent immigrant and told him to get on the press vacated by the Turk.
Punch presses like the one pictured in this thread are bloodthirsty machines if not fitted with appropriate safeguards.
