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I started working at my new job ---Very cool shop---

PortPirate

Aluminum
Joined
Nov 16, 2005
Location
Port Washington, WI
So I started working at my new job last Monday. I feel like I could retire from here. This is a link to the web site. www.orion-corp.com
We manufacture hydrodynamic bearings. I came here from a really crummy job shop that didn't pay crap, making two or three hundred parts an hour. At this place its more like one to 10 parts in a ten hour day depending on what I am doing. Some of the machines they have are absolutely enormous. Most of the real giants are Horizontal mills. I was training on one Monday and in order to blow out the chips I had to climb three stairs and walk through a door to get into the machine. Once inside I walked around on the way covers like they were catwalks.

I feel like a Machinist now, The first shop had me wondering why I went to school. Check out the website we make some crazy sh1t!
 
Looks pretty good on their website...couldn't find any equipment photos though :-( Makes going to work every day a little more enjoyable...HAVE FUN!
 
Interesting. One question I would have is about the fairly far distance between the two manufacturing facilities, WI and NE....is this the result of a takeover of another shop? The distance would seem to work against having control of the products while adding travel costs to the business, unless the other location was turnkey or more expensive to relocate back to WI.

Anyway, good luck with everything...low priority question above.

-Matt
 
couldn't find any equipment photos though
The don't allow anything that can take a picture on the shop floor, I wish I could take pictures to show you guys. We do alot a defense stuff.

As to why there is a plant in Nebraska I have no Idea. We can make the entire line at the WI facility.
 
A little ot :D
Just went to Port Washington last weekend to eat at Smith Bros Fish Fry.Got there and found that they had closed shop :( Loved their fried cod.
 
precisionworks, they got the head on the wrong side of the column! :rolleyes: I'm used to the G&L "bars". Some of that big stuff is fun...some of it is a lot of climbing/crawling/getting on stepladders jsut to set up.
 
Yep, durned bass-ackwards Lucases, lol. I much prefer the G&L machine orientation, since I'm right handed. With the Lucas, you're sort of stuck either turning around to set the readouts or using your (half-retarded, in my case) left hand. I suspect if I'd run 50 Lucases and 3 G&L's instead of vice-versa I might feel exactly opposite however. :D
 
they got the head on the wrong side of the column!
Yep, durned bass-ackwards Lucases
ROFLMAO!!!

We have a 'little' G&L also, nice for the smaller jobs. I know exactly what you mean, when standing at the G&L controls, the spindle & spindle tooling are about waist level to the left.

The average job on our Lucas weighs ten tons (coal mining equipment). It looks like PortPirate works with smaller, high precision jobs.
 
precisionworks, I've been to the two (now one) local G&L plants a number of times over the years...very interesting. They built some good sized "floor bars" with "X" axis travel determined by customer, up to several hundred inches I believe. They had the "ram" type headstock with a 6, 7, 8" quill inside. The "ram" itself has 4 feet or more of z/w travel and is about 18" square up to around 20" x 24". Probably more your size :D The table bars we had/have, plus the smaller VMC's and HMC's from the Kaukauna plant were always very acurate machines. Even 25+ years ago every axis had the "inductosyn" scales, including the rotaries.
 
Well, it's not only on the "little" G&L's, friend. I've run G&L machines from 3" spindle up to 7", which is bigger than the Lucas you linked with a 6" spindle. The 7" had a 12 or 15 foot vertical travel and over 20' of floor travel, don't remember exactly how long the ways were, it's been a few years, y'know. And it did have the square ram mentioned, it was used as an outboard support and for mounting the 90 deg. or universal milling head. The G&L controls are always at or a little below waist level on the left hand side, whether you're standing on the floor or suspended in the cage. There are plenty of "little" Lucases too.
:D
 
I ran a Sinada that was backwards like the Lucas.It's creepy weird standing on that side of the mill but after a few days you kind of get used to it. But,it sure feels great to get back to a normal one.
 
wyzkydd2358, one of the first machines I ran was a small G&L. They had two of them with 2-1/2" spindle...small! One had a plain table with 30" of "X" tavel, the other had a 24" square turntable, with built in dial indicator for very accurate 90* indexing. Place did a lot of work during WWII, I suppose everyone did, and these were Gov't machines, I guess. Govt labels, "war finish" (no filler on castings), etc. They were worn a bit by the early 70's, but still ran 2 shifts a day. Each machine had a little stool, had to be under 16" tall, that ya sat on when running the controls. Long friction clutch lever at the back of the machine parallel to the floor that you used constantly, was maybe a foot off the floor. Top speed around 400 rpm. Hard to believe we sat there, cross legged 10 hours a day :D
 
We have a 'little' G&L also, nice for the smaller jobs.
Our G&L is a small machine, 4" spindle. Which is not to imply that all Giddings & Lewis machines are small, or that all Lucas Precision mills are large. The floor-type HBM's (that I've seen)tend to be smaller when the spindle is 3" to 5", larger when the spindle is 6" to 12".

All of them, essentially, are like a Bridgeport laid on its back, given a healthy dose of steroids :D
 








 
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