This One Not For The Squeamish!

I stumbled on this last night while trying to track down a shrink rule (still need one, 1/8" per foot). This guy is surely destined to spend his afterlife pumping to bellows at Lucifer's forge, or worse.



Cutting up a lathe for scrap

Wow

That sucks big time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ive found that page a loooooooooooooong time ago.

The sad part is, that this guy actually kicks ass in terms of crazy, creative backyard engineering with total disrepect to tolerances, precision and fancy numbers, just make it work.

How someone like that can disregard a big old , possibly "beater" type, lathe which would perfectly augment the crazy things he does, is beyond me.....

If a model enginer says " Sorry mate, but that thing is WAY too big" i would understand, but that fella, no way....

It has been a while, but this one has been discussed. About the only saving grace is that by operating as he does, he accelerates the day when our older machines will be seen for value, both aesthetic and practical, instead of only so much weight.

Little does he realize that the industrial output of the US, while prodigious in it's day, WAS finite. And he's just reducing that finite by another small finite amount.

Of some 5 million Model A Fords created during it's almost 5 year production cycle, it's estimated that less than 500K exist today. And this dearth has allowed the price of restored Model As to just about equal that of a new production car of similar capability - and this for a vehicle not near as engineered nor as safe as a modern car. This is a case of supply and demand.

And there is my story of being a later teen-ager and going around to the 5 used machine tool dealers in Worcester, MA in the late 1970s looking for an "old" lathe. Flat belt drive, curvy legs, box tailstock, loose change gears. How the eyes of one of the dealers lit up when I mentioned to him my quest.

"Boy, you shudda been here back ten years ago. Late 1960s dem gooks (sic) came in here and bought up entire floors of Crompton & Knowles, and Coes Wrench, and Reed-Prince. If it would fit into a container, and you could call it a machine tool of ANY kind, dem gooks wanted it. I made a FORTUNE being the guy who found it sold it to dem."

And those tools went over there and became the industrial start of the production empire that China and the pacific rim is today.

And now for us the worm has turned. No longer do large factory buildings filled with ancient machine tools exist. One is lucky to find even pieces of machines of that era - thus the discussion of several "parts" on this board - and others. And prices of older tools are starting to accelerate. Just starting perhaps. Consider the attraction of "Barnsitus" which is a lathe that still exists in scrap piles behind chicken coops all across the center portion of this country.

And little by little the "common man" including this miscreant (give him time) is waking up to this fact.

He will rue the day. Of course we already do.

Joe

In the halcyon days prior to my leaving New England in the fall of 1971, there existed in Holyoke, Mass a multifloored warehouse jammed to overflowing with twenties and teens cast off machine tools. One of those ancient places that the only access to the various floors being a rickety freight elevator that sometimes actually worked and stopped where you wanted it to.

I was attracted mostly to a threesome of exactly the same #3 B&S heavy plain cone head mills. They had spent their working lives in some N.E. shop(s?) making some forgotten things and looked like they did not suffer much in the process. I expect the whole shebang is long gone now.

Hundreds of tons just evaporated.

I remember this nitwit being discussed before! When i read of him and see his webpage, I still fizz with rage, The man is a moron,
I concur 100% with all the other contributors to the thread, One thing no-one has mentioned is the fact that no craftsman worth his salt, takes any delight in breaking up the product of another mans hands, All be it something made about two or three generations before ones own timescale
O.K. if something is beaten to a pulp when it appears in the scrap yard, 50% of it missing The rest hanging on like a pound of mince, I can see the point in recycling Many years ago, when i worked in an iron foundry, i always had a twinge of sadness, seeing the remains of nice things lying in the yard in a smashed up pile, so it was with the rest of my brother craftsmen
As a prelude to that era, i upon occasion go to meet Wull, my fellow apprentice, and we often talk of combing through the scrap mound at dinner time looking at various components, Although almost all the scrap was too far gone or large to become a "treasure"

At that time in the next house to my home, lived Mr Dunlop, who was to trade a turner (machinist to you folks) He operated an identical but similar pattern lathe to that nice old Walcott, and could make her talk! As a lathe his machine had like the sad machine to which we see in the article lots of refinements which would not be out of place in a machine of a later vintage Somehow or other i think those far off days, got me intrigued with the occasional American machine tool which would appear amidst its British counterparts

Things vanish as a country moves on, But as regards heritage looking back on what had been i admire all my fellow members of this forum who are excercised to do something, at a not inconsiderate sacrifice for posterity, not taking a delight in destroying the past knowing folks like your good selves would be saddened

Just when i thought things could not get any worse, I read of how our man smashed up a nice little Milclark bandsaw because he did not seem to have the patience to suss out how to track the blade "The happiest day of his life was when he relieved a weight from his life by dropping it off the tailgate of his lorry Yee Ha !"

Maybe some of you guys could club together &buy our man some cans of spray paint, he could go out &graffiti bridges etc for a change & save your heritage from further loss

Well maybe he has advanced from when he was young, Perhaps, breaking other kids toys, or tying poor unfortunate little frogs to the railway line Yee Ha,

"Grumpy old Sand Rat"

Dammnit, i just had a look. The Bandsaw ?! Too lazy to align it.

Ok , the guy is still crazy, but i take back the praise of calling him a competent hack and tinkerer. Breaking up a machine you have no use for is one thing, scrapping one because you want it but you are too lazy is a whole new dimension of indecency.


Ohh crap, i am just in the process of getting an extremely nice 1970s lathe for our shop.
But there is another one sitting somewhere else which is much bigger and 1940s-50s . And i want that one too. Would be a great loss if it had to be scrapped. And it will be (place is gonna get torn down this year) if i cant convice people that we indeed need yet another one.

By pure logic that should be no problem, we have large equipment that would need HUGE machines to fix, and even our moderately sized stuff would at least need the one facing the scrapper right now.

But we also lack the space...
Wish me luck....

This guy is old news unfortunatly. Been discussed before as Joe has described.


YUP .....shame.

cutting oil Mac said:

I remember this nitwit being discussed before! When i read of him and see his webpage, I still fizz with rage, The man is a moron

Click to expand...

The spindle bearings of the lathe look like they are (or were) in very good shape.

Maybe while he is breaking these machines up with a hammer, a piece of cast iron will fly up and hit him in the head and send him to the scrapyard.

Rob

The craziest part is the guy built a lathe from scratch, Gingery style - far, far inferior to the one he smashed for melt stock. There must be a word for that... Devolution?

The Walcott lathe in the discussion, looked a pretty good machine, as Robert has stated, the bearings looked in good shape, & looking down at the apron, before disaster struck it, one had all the controls to hand, good rapid facilities for reversing the direction of your feeds, without having to dive up to the headstock end every few minutes,

For its days ergonomics 90% + a nice taper arrangement &a sturdily built little machine I think i would have been delighted to keep &use her

Yup, he destroyed a perfectly good lathe, to harvest material to build a lathe that will be far inferior in capacity, rigidity, and tolerance. Progress!

A good example of a guy who isn't about to let logic or reason stand in his way.

Andy

johnoder said:

In the halcyon days prior to my leaving New England in the fall of 1971, there existed in Holyoke, Mass a multifloored warehouse jammed to overflowing with twenties and teens cast off machine tools. One of those ancient places that the only access to the various floors being a rickety freight elevator that sometimes actually worked and stopped where you wanted it to.

I was attracted mostly to a threesome of exactly the same #3 B&S heavy plain cone head mills. They had spent their working lives in some N.E. shop(s?) making some forgotten things and looked like they did not suffer much in the process. I expect the whole shebang is long gone now.

Hundreds of tons just evaporated.

Click to expand...

John, would you happen to remember the name of the place? I realize they are most likely gone, but machine dealers and warehouses with iron in them are getting hard to find, especially in Western MA.

Andy FitzGibbon said:

Yup, he destroyed a perfectly good lathe, to harvest material to build a lathe that will be far inferior in capacity, rigidity, and tolerance. Progress!

A good example of a guy who isn't about to let logic or reason stand in his way.

Andy

Click to expand...

His greatest offense is that none of the smashed cast iron was used to make anything. The mill he purchased was later hauled to the scrap yard, so were three of the lathes he purchased. He could have bought broken cast from the scrap yard to feed his furnace.

It's strange that he seems to be so proud of himself for not only destroying useable machinery, but losing money in the process.

Andy

but, but, but... that old iron is excellent fodder for a cupola!

I'd feel no guilt cutting that red thing apart. Machines live their life, then its time to recycle them, replace with something new that earns money ideally. If he just wants to cut them for therapy, so be it. Better than the government parking brand new machines in the rain.

Not even every machine that makes it to this forum is saved. Every one of us who gives a damn about old machinery could fill their garages with a full selection of lathes, mills, saws, etc. and there still will be many more out there available. I think I've helped save at least a dozen of what could be termed "historic machine tools" so far, and I still keep hearing of more available.

My dad was doing a job in a shop for a customer and noticed guys taking turns crashing a machine intentionally, whacking it with a sledge, ect. An old timer was working at the bench by my dad and one of the boneheads walked up and offered them a chance at bat. The old timer replied, "That old machine never hurt me".

Thats pretty much the point.....

Its bad enough if something cant be saved due to space and time restrictions, it happens all the time, and we all know it. No matter how many enthusiasts there are, when a metalworking company of long tradition closes down there WILL be a lot of machine too far outdated or gone in terms of wear for normal resale and too big or special for almost any home shop. Lets face it.
As i said, i have the problem myself right now....


But this is more along the lines of legal Vandalism , the guy who mentioned graffiti was spot on.
The guy seems to have some sort of superiority complex, he thinks everything he does is important, cool , innovative or something like that.
He actually finds his Gingery lathe worthy of bragging about it ...
I guess destroying any "competition" for that POS is mostly on his agenda so he doesnt have to realize how far his own work is from being superior.