Ran across this while going to look at a lathe today. (More on the lathe later, mums the word until it's in the shop, but HEAVY DUTY is a good start.) Anyhow, there's mills and then there's the Hydrotel. Never seen one in my life. Dammit, man....
According to his autobiography, a business hero bought up government Hydro-Tels, and ran them in Los Angeles County. They'd all been defense plant property, so cared for. This put him into productive competition for aircraft work prevalent in the same area, especially focusing on the larger structural components. Who? Frank Pachmayr. Yes,
that Pachmayr.
Everybody else scrimped for individual Friden tape run NC machines, took them years to catch up.
It takes money to make money. Yup. And a fast machine gets worked to death against multiple simple machines with powerful spindles. . .This gorgeous pic appears to be National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) archives.
When's last time you climbed 11' for an auxiliary control box? Cool thing about HydroTels, there were a few built 'normal' sized too.
It's disappointing today what folks call 'being in business'. I don't consider a sh**load of cubicles, bluetooth printers in a leased speculative built office tower
business.
Show me capital investment; property, substations, maybe a rail spur, or encircled by a paved access road named same as the plant...you get the picture.
Me? Single proprietor, private free standing building, free span interior, loading dock high, zoned M1, with big enough door to push in a 4B JigMil, *8 Rousselle OBI, bits in ~100 tons of equipment.
Plus an abandoned rail spur...
