Ox's Shop

[Ox]

It was a dark and stormy night....

My shop did not start as a planned venture. I was actually employed by a [not so old] classmate and fellow dumb farmer in his stamping shop that he started while still finishing high skewl. I hired in a cpl yrs later and built die blocks and ran the grinders for the most part.

My first week on the job was 98 or 98-1/2 hrs and eventually got cought up enough that I werked my way down to 5-12's. I racked up prox 5000 hrs in a yr and a half. While I didn't expect to make a million overnight being a newbie in the game, my pay was not escalating hardly a'tall, and coupled with being [nearly] the only tool box in the shop with the lowest pay I got pretty upset one day when I had to stand 3 deep in line to git in my toy box behind one guy making half aggin more and the boss. At that point you hafta stand back and ask "What am I dooin?"

Eventually something put me over the edge and I ended up at the end of one day grabbing a forktruck and loading my toybox in the truck. I came into werk the next day with a mill wrench and a calculator. At the end of the day we came to an agreement I guess.....

It would seem that 1989 was NOT a boom yr, although we at that shop were always swamped - but you'll have that at eny business on the way up eh? I thought that I could find something somewhere quickly enough. .... Wasn't to be. A chumm that had heard that I was sleeping late called up and said that another fella had quit and they had an opening at the gas station as a pumper/wrench if I was interested. ... Well why not, it's better'n nut'n...

Aboot that same time a feller that I was building some benders and such for at the old shop had also heard that I was not there enymore. Him and the old boss had had some confrontations a while back and had split ways already. He was thinking on puting in a mill and such and maybe hiring me on if I was interested? ...Beats dealing with the public! (gas station) Well it seems that his wife put the cabosh to that! But he said that if I was interested in buying my own equipment - he had enough werk to git me started. Well for this dumb farmer - that's quite an invitation if ever I heard one!

I was shopping for equipment days and werking the gas station 2nd shift for a while. I doo remember one day for sure that I was a cpl hrs late to werk (I called in) as my day had been longer than hoped, but I had a $400 Kalamazoo saw in the back of the truck! After a few weeks I was up and running and quit the gas station and was back at the long hours once again. I had been away from the shop for prolly less than 2 months, and I was surprised how quickly the trade had seemed to slip from me. I had to stop and think aboot things that had been routine just a cpl months ago. But soon it was all back and now I had to doo design as well as build. I was up for eny challange - I was 22, single, and had nothin' to lose!

I started with a mill, grinder, kick start phase convertor, and an air compressor. I had essentially no experience on a lathe and so I didn't rank that high on my needs list and decided that I could just farm out that for now. Within 6 months tho - I had decided that I could easilly make payments on a lathe with all the $ that I was farming out - and found a 16x36 LeBlond from the war.

I did not see the machine run, and found out when I got it hooked up that the main power shaft had been sheared off somehow. ??? OK, so now I got the machine apart and have two power shafts and all I really need is one. What's a feller to doo? I thought that they looked like they could simply be faced true and actually be bolted back together. So what - take it to a shop with a "werking" lathe? I didn't have that kinda $. Keep in mind that I am a 22 yr old broke plowboy. I have been werking on my own in many regards for many yrs. I quickly came up with a plan! Chuck up the shafts in the lathe and sspin the chuck by hand and fix it... and that's exactly what I did! I had the machine for maby 15 more years and I NEVER had another issue with that (or any others that I can think of) shaft!

These pics are from "Stage 1" which could also be referred to as a 1-1/2 truck garage.

My mom can be quite the artist - and she painted this pic back when and labeled it "Small Beginnings". Assuming there was going to be bigger days ahead?

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I am Ox and I approve this here post!

 

[Ox]

Come along a little further down memory lane with me eh?

Got this pic of us obviously eithe rloading or unloading what looks to be a drill fixture of some sorts? This would have been about the time and possibly the project that I he was wanting back yesterday of course (don't we all). I was working on it for [I don't remember] a week or two or - I have no idea .... but he was wanting it and I was at a point that I thought that I could pull an All-Nighter and finish it up for him.

This all-nighter turned into a 3-day-all-nighter.

I was not only embarassed that I couldn't judge eny better as to how much longer it would take, but [as you can understand] a bit tired by the end.

There is no doubt that I could have gotten two more nights sleep in there and still gotten it out the door at the same time. But that was just something this kid had to learn on his own eh?

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[Ox]

Not 100% sure of the date of this project. I think it musta been early 1990? A customer needed someone to build this big welding fixture for him. He wanted me to doo it for him, but:

A) I don't weld. (Not werth talking about enyway...)

B) I didn't have that kinda room!

C) This is a job for a customer of his - so it needs to be done in his shop - in case they wunna come see the progress of course...

However - I have a chumm that is a great welder that werked third at the time. I really didn't want to be over there on 1st as I wouldn't be at the shop to answer the phone for days on end eh? (Answering machine back then?) It cost some $ but I got it done that enytime that my phone rang at my place - it also rang into a new phone out in my customers shop during the duration of the project. (We had two to build. and it took maybe a month?)

As I am sure many of you know - starting a business from nothing can be hard on the grocery check, and I did whatever I could to make a nickle. It didn't need to be shop related. I DJ'd weddings/partys, drove Sudden Service for a local truck line for one fall, (Musta been 1989?) and did a lot of wrench werk. Tranny rebuilds, motor swaps/reseals, I was known for 4wd werk at the time as well.

In the process of this a feller ends up with skeletins - not in the closet - but rather out in the yard. This one had just recently lost it's power source - and possibly even went into that truck? I kant say fer sure... But a cpl rednecks can find cheap thrills with whatever is available at the time eh?

Later that same day we went to find some other way to abuse our rides as well as try to put my (soon to be) wifey through the front winder. There seems to have been a big rock in the bottom of that hole!

This can also end up with another golden opertunity to practice the 4wd mech abilities as well! But it was the same pit a yr before that I spun a rod bearing? Drove it home easy. Drove to werk the naxt week - easy. Scrounged some clean used one owner rod & main bearings from some local chumms and robbed a good crank out of a doner 305 and fixed the motor for the cost of 5 qrts of oil, a filter, and by means of pcing together the wrong-handed dipstick gaskets left over from some previous project. Yeah - I squeek, but when you got nut'n - you got nut'n to lose eh? Besides - there are bragging rights on that one to be had! I ran that motor for another yr and then I think I sold the motor off and last I knew it was still running! (Not as of late of course...)

The brown truck was mine and before long I ended up buying the red truck again with a blowed motor. (Keep in mind - I think I replaced that motor for him before - not rebuilt it.)


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There - back up to snuff.
Ox

 

[Ox]

First new pics since 12/27/08

After only 1 yr in the garage I needed more elbow room. Boy it sure seems longer than that? But that's what it was. The farrowing house was empty and in poor shape - but still somewhat standing. LOL!

The building did not have big doors in it as the biggest thing going in/out was sows, so we had to redoo the front end to accomidate the O/H door - and the back of the building musta been in bad shape as well as we decided to yank that out and redoo that as well.

Yanked up the slats in the floor, pulled down the drop ceiling and shoved all the insulation down into the pit. Covered that up with sand and packed and packed and packed with the biggest tractor we could git in the building. Poured 5" on top of that. Lasted a good long time untill we started storing WAY heavier stuff in there than it was built for.

This project started late summer of 1990. Moved in prox Thanksgiving. (Late November for you out of towners. )

And that seems to be aboot all the pics I have of that...


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This all hits pretty close to home.
Ox

 

[Ox]

Next summer (1991) came one of the biggest projects I have done. It was good that I had all that new room! This was to be quite the challange to my design capabilities as well. One of the biggest challanges was to build this big unit "on the cheap". They were looking to git a new line off the ground as cheap as bloody well possible and could upgrade down the road as needed if all went well.

They wanted to pop the holes in fibreglass as well as alum extrussions (Not sure if you extrude glass?) for stepladders up to 12' tall - all in one pop. This was for a local outfit looking to expand their prominant line of wood ladders at that time.

These new offerings looked identical to what Werner has been selling for the last cpl decades. I am not sure which came first to tell you the truth.

These are offered in at least a GP and HD grade. Not sure if there is/was a 3rd option or not? The HD ones had dbl rivited steps with gussets. There are quite a number of holes in one of these - and the dbl rivited ones are very close together to be able to pop both at once. All of those as well as the four in the top cap are all done via custom built gearboxes and every other drill was LH.

I don't find much for pics of this unit, but I am sure that at least one more pic existed at one time that showed the top cap gearbox better - so maybe there are more somewhere. You can see that box hanging ratt up front closest to you - but kinda fuzzy detail...

Drilled all holes up to 12' long on all three sides of the channel at the same time incl HD models. Unit was built on such a dime that there was no rack/pinion gear links from post to post and required an operator to keep the flow controls adjusted properly. (Air over Hyd) But I would constantly git called in to adj it back to werking order. Had I known that it would be that bigg'a deal - I would have incorpporated that feature somehow. But I am sure the piggy bank would'a squeeled heavilly. LOL!

All built on manual equipment. At that time CNC was not nearly the mainstay that it is in every shop that it is today. And of course being a newby to the industry I Shirley didn't have eny. But they were just comming WAY down in price at that time.

Other projects at that time were prog dies for roofing mostly. I recall one die that kept me busy every other day just resharpening it. It was a 6 out die that just made round plates that they would shoot nails through for rubber roofing. This was just after Hurricane Andrew - and all of Florida needed a new roof - and new code made these a requirement I guess.

I thought that maybe my die was soft or ??? that they needed it sharpened so often? They said - no - that they had ran over a million parts off of it in the last 2 days.

Here is a pic of a nother die. This one was not my design. I had a nother one to copy from. Aslo used in the rubber roofing market.

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I am Ox and I approve this here post!

 

[david n]

ARGH! I tilted the "Number of pics allowed/post" alarm and it faulted out.

Now I gotta redoo my redoo.


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The "Compound" per Perry:

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Ox,
That's some wide open country. Don't skinny farm kids like you just blow away in the wind?

 

[Ox]

Ox,
That's some wide open country. Don't skinny farm kids like you just blow away in the wind?

All through the 90's that was a real possability. I have a tree that got all twisted up in a small turnado. It was small at the time and never grew quite right after that. Hmmm, I htink I know some folks like that too?



OK - so now we are at early '92. I had ben wanting to venture into the CNC werld, but at that time you couldn't git a machine that would run at a decent price like todays cheap stuff. (20+ yr old machines) I had gotten in an early 70's Brown and Sharp Hydra-Tape with a 550 on it. We had one like this but much older at the shop that I usta werk at. But this one just wouldn't quite run. Being low rent - I just couldn't justify having someone come look at it really and spend good money after bad, and I traded it back in for another old unit. This time an Acroloc with a GN6 (3?) on it. I could run most of it manually - but ..... Ended up selling that to an old customer that put a putor based retrofit on it. I think he still runs it to this day?

By this time some of my original stuff that was on 3 yr notes had light at the end of the tunnel. I don't remember how I come to find my next purchase, but a dealer in Detroit (don't even remember who enymore) had this Bridgeport Series 2 Special CNC with a 20" Troyke rotary table for sale. Price was 18.5. I decided that I needed to go see it. Made a cpl trips up to look at it. Dealer thought that to run the rotary that I would hafta unhook one of the other axis. But there was another cable wrapped around the base of the machine that he didn't know where it went. I had a feeling that it was a true 4 axis control and took that chance. Assuming that if I pushed the issue and found out while at the dealers and found that it did indeed run true 4th - that the price could go up eh? I bought it.

Picture shows it w/o the rotary on it - but a gearbox that I had just milled out for that drill machine posted above. For the original leg of the machine build the yr before they stopped me part way through and decided that they just wanted to go to 8' long. Now I was in process of adding the werking componants to the last 4' - and this made the mill werk SO much easier!

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[hdrider63]

Well,,,,theres gotta be more to your story Ox. I know you have more and newer iron. I talked to you about a twin turret Hardinge...?? PLeeze continue...

 

[Ox]

It looks like I kan't seperate the next few yrs too well from each other pic wise. But it boiled down to:

I had this CNC [knee] mill now and started dooing 2ndary op werk for a Davenport (brand name - not location) screw machine shop that I had been dooing repair werk for all along. Lotsa wrench flats as I recall. Prolly some backwerk on some?

Then along comes this job making some 7/16 sqr rams for some mid capacity tubing cutters. (I thought that I posted this before - but I don't see it?) Enyway - they were to blank them out and we were to cross drill and tap for the screw, slot 1/4 wide for the roller (cutter?), and maybe run the 1/4-20 LH tap in the back end.

Time goes on and I don't git blanks, they are busy with other stuff and not really knowing when they would git onto this order... It's not my job directly - but all told - I would be dooing the lions share of the werk enyway, and I hated to lose it. So I asked him if it would be OK if I blanked them out as well. (Not that I had enything to run it on.)

So it was to be that I rummaged up a clean used 25 owner #3 W&S. I don't find eny pics - but other than this one was apparently pre-war and did not have an A2 nose on it - it looked just like the one that you all have sitting in a dark corner somewhere.... So go ahead and walk over there and look at that one - and just picture it in your mind posted ra'cheer.

Got some other werk in for the turret lathe that my Davenport chum couldn't or wasn't interested in running that also had 2ndary werk to it. Soon enough the volumes on the ram job were getting to be more than I wanted to run on the #3 and bought a 2G B&S off the same chumm to run them on. Now we're big time! We now have an "Automatic"! (I don't see a pic here of that either.)

All of this 2nd werk was running through this CNC Bridgeport. I laid the 20" table down and had a plate (it is bigger'n the table) burned out and ground for it. Then I put four 5c air chuckers on the table. We would replace part at 6:00 while the machine was werking on the part at 12:00. Actually - the sqr rams had their own ganged up fixture for slotting - but everything else ran through this setup.

This pic shows that machine with the chucker table on it, and even shows the slotting fixture on the rt edge of the table that I was talking aboot. Pic also shows the drip pan w/wings under it. We ran REAL flood coolant on it - not a splash here and there. I guess you can see that in the previous pic. I think pic musta been taken on moving day - like many of the pics that I will be posting in the near future. That would'a been spring '97. This pic also shows the newly installed "upgraded" Delta 40 control. Up from the "System 10" control originally on it when new in '85.

You can also see the 100+ gal spray tank that we used to make batches of coolant in.


As I think I said before - these pics here all look to have been taken during the move - so things are messed up worse than normal. Also - much of that building sits as a time capsule and much of the "stuff" is still there and the same. (Posters, calanders, much of the office stuff....) On muggy days you could still smell just a hint of hogs for a while - but we soon replaced that with cutting oil.

More pics that were taken just prior or at moving time - but would have been indicative of the mid '90's in that building. However the earlier the date - the less cramped things would'a been of course.

It looks like the A/C has already been robbed from this next pic as it lived in the back RH corner in this pic where you can see an air line poking through the wall. Also - hiding behind the torch you can see a small dedicated drilling fixture that I had built for the cross-drilled screw holes in those sqr rams so's to be sure they were lined up propper like. It used air pressure to actuate - but used hydraulic oil on one side of the cyl to use as a "checking" agent. You can see the little reseviours sticking up above the cyls. The buckets under the scale/bench likely were full'a the LH screw blanks for those rams??? Not so sure I don't still have a bucket of them here yet. That whole project died in late '97.

Well now I guess we don't hafta guess when these pics were taken. This may not be a current newspaper - but it narrows things down to the month eh? LOL! - Yep - moving time!

Most everything here still is the same. I think "Life After People" will be calling soon for a snippit. LOL!

Ahhhh yesssss - the redhead Snap-On gurl! I am pretty sure that she wasn't Miss May '97. I think her day had come long ago - it just never "gone". She still hangs there! The camels have fallen and koodn't git back up tho. LOL! But then my uncle died 2 yrs later than this doo to those camels - so I guess it'd be appropriate.

Keep in mind guys - I have already posted WAY more iron than Russ!




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***It may not have been much, but it was mine.***
Ox

 

[Steve@Reliance]

2 things to git a one man shop though those long days, lots of Dew an' a scavenged stereo from the house!

 

[Ox]

From 94/95 to 98 I had 3 guys werking - usually 50 hr weeks. Plus some part-time yet. Things were busy. At that time I didn't actually make that many chips of my own. I was always ordering tooling, looking at new jobs, locating a nother machine to run it, getting newsed machines running, as well as designing re-tooled machines. I would run machines in the evenings on my own.


The stereo above the Bridgeport was bought out of the "trading post" one day when I was buying my original lot of machines. The equipment in the office was mostly left-overs from the growing pans of my DJ business that I quit dooing in '93 to keep the shop running on saturdays. It just took too much time away and I had to pick one or the other.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[hdrider63]

I see a shotgun sitting in the corner by your desk........your way of collecting on unpaid invoices?

 

[wrench]

He's on a farm... While the CNC is running, if he sees quail walking around outside Ox can grab the 12 gauge and, well, get setup for dinner!

 

[gbent]

If quails walking around, you grab the .22. If you're poaching anyway (it ain't poachin if you've been feedin' em) why eat bird shot?

 

[hdrider63]

So when you moved did you just go into another building on your place or did you take the operation to town?

 

[Ox]

No - just moved to a bigger building here on the farm.

Instead of being in the farrowing house - we are now in the milking parlor.

Actually - the old shop is full to the gills with iron in storage. You hafta go back outside to change your mind.

The shotgun was for every third salesman. And it is still well within reach now.



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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[Steve@Reliance]

I was going to drop by for a visit, was it the 1st or 2nd one that just left?

 

[Ox]

I was going to drop by for a visit, was it the 1st or 2nd one that just left?

That's only for the salesmen. If your just stoppin' in to say hey - then as long as you git past the guardshack (doggies?) all is fine.


(Actualy I just wanted to git another post on this page so's not to load yet more pics to this page. )


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[Ox]

As my shingle has been up officially for 20 yrs as of yesterday - I guess it'd be a good time to add to the thread eh?

Just a reminder that these as well as the last cpl posts contained pics taken in spring '97 as we were moving to the next step up in buildings. I am trying to introduce the iron in order tho as I don't find eny pics between 92 and '97, but it all is there in the '97 pics.... Although seemingly chaotic and very messy. Even more than normall with the moving...

I am pretty sure that I mentioned the 2G B&S that we had, so next up I think would be the '83 Cinci 5VC-750 that we got in early '93. It can be seen on the far inside wall. I got this b/c we got a job to run 5000 "Venturi Bodys". I was able to make small volumes on the Bridgeport CNC with rotary (Fixture for 5 parts and could index around to hit all sides and angles in one chucking.) but the cycle time was slow and would never git enything else done. This job was enough to make a yrs werth of payments I figured - but would take a cpl months to run out. Not bad IMO. Also - there was a lot of tiny holes in alum and the B/P didn't have near the RPM either. Of course this only had 6K, but I think it was a lot better'n a B/P would up to 4200 for months on end...

I also picked up a new HAAS 5C collet indexer with stand-alone controler. Never minded the whole ordeal of getting the M-codes hooked up/installed on this older machine and just rigged up a limiit switch. I would run the Y all the way ahead to trip the limit switch and thus would activate yet other line of code on the indexer. I still use that same approach to this day in some applications. This does mean that the operator needs to understands the ramifications of getting things outta time!

When I got the Cinci I quickly bought another 5hp vert I/R compressor as that thing is hungry for air!

Oh - another thing that comes to mind - I bought this Cinci from a dealer in Luiseville, Kentucky. I had received a catalogue from them with prices in it. It looked like about what I needed and the price seemed fair. I called and ordered it. They couldn't believe that I didn't want to come down to look at it! Well - of course I did WANT to - but no time. I was busy otherwise and I needed it as quick as possible too. I asked them "It has a 30 day return privilage right?" They assured to me that it did. So I told them that we can both be assured that you aint shippin' me junk right?

Well - they koodn't hardly argue that fact too hard. LOL! So - he asked if he was to video the machine running if I would like to see it. Uh, sure.... So a day ortwo later I git this video in the mail. I watch it quick and then call them to tell them to "SHIP THE BLOODY THING ALREADY!". .... "OK" ... "Alright"..... Then - wouldn't'cha just know it - along comes the biggest baddest ice storm in recent history in Kentucky and the whole place is just plain shut down for a cpl days now .... Finally my machine arrives. It ran fine and was just as it looked in the pic. Whodda thunk it? LOL!

BTW - that's not me in the pic.

Next would be the 2-1/4 R4 Acme that you see ratt up front and is missing the stock reel. I bought this sight unseen from a guy on the phone that I had only ever heard of before. And it wasn't even his. He was just trying to find it a home. Machine was born in 1935 and was "born again" in 1970 by Ecorse. (Rebuilt) I still have this machine and although I don't run it hardly at all enymore, it is still a very tight machine. (Kant git a feeler guage in to measure the gap)

Obsolete Tom picked this machine out of a pic of a neighboring machine 7 yrs ago as a machine that he usta run before I got it! (You may find his post on an old "Ox's Shop" thread from '02 if you search, but no pics are linked enymore.)

I had never ran an Acme before, but my B&S was running every waking hr I had all that winter - so I picked it up. Didn't even show up for a cpl months, but I didn't have time for a new toy at the time enyhow. Fiunally one day it showed up at my door. We slid it in the door and walked around it for a cpl more months. One day a customer of mine that had some Acmes stopped in and I asked him quick where the cams lived on this thing. He kinda pointed at the casting in a cpl places and that was good enough...

Finally one day I got time and in the same spirit of the B&S, I slung three warrs over to it and hit the "Start" button. Lo and behold - the spindles even went around! Tossed what appeared to be the feed angagement lever and some things moved all of a sudden and then ... quit .... ???? The spindles were still going around... I messed with the feed lever.... I bet this went on for a cpl minutes and as I had my head poked into the cutting zone to see if I could see enything moving - ALL OF A SUDDEN everything pulled back _ that thing with the spindles in it all of a sudden indexed over 90* _ and the tool slides all went back in! .... and stopped aggin.....

This went on a cpl times untill I realized that it WAS feeding - just VERY slowly! It was setup on a 2-1/8D SS job and had realy slow speeds and feeds and had close to (if not) a 2 minute cycle time. (Forever in mutlispindle cycle time realms!)

That spring we got a few high volume (to us) screw machine jobs. These were 15K pcs of brass parts. One of which would go on this big Acme. No room inside (or so I thought at the time) for this machine, so we drug it back outside and setup the stock reel. Tossed a tarp over it and ran it that way, untill Novemebr came that fall. I'll tell yuh - that thing just did NOT want to start at 7:00 AM eny more than I did! It took my guy an hr or so to git it farred up in the mornings! What we endeded up dooing at Thanksgiving (End of Nov for you outta towners) was to take the stock reel apart and only run the front part of it, spun it like you see in the pic, and whacked the bars down to 6' long and ran it like that! Keep in mind that this is a big machine and there is prolly 3' of bar already up in the machine before we even started on the new bars. It didn't spin too fast either, so ... we never had eny issues of runnig it like that that I can think of? At that time it ran a lot of hex 416 that I can recall.... so that was slow werk...

I hooked up an air cyl and a cpl air op limit switches to the threading unit and had a poor mans "Air trip threading". Also built an air op "stock depletion" unit for it so that it would throw itself outta feed when it ran outta material. Still had to deal with that GOD awfull drag type chip conveyor tho. When I got off the dairy farm I thought that I was done dealing with broken shit spreader chains (only break when full eh?). I was wrong.

Funny thing now that I think of it - An older farmer was here one day and saw the broken chain on the conveyor. He looked at me and said "Some thing never change doo they?"

Machine is sporting a clean used "universal" conveyor (Donated by a scrapped 1-5/8" Acme) that I had to modify to shoehorn down in place of the old drag link setup. It is so tight'a fit that I actually had to push it down in with the forktruck! Life is good now!

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[Steve@Reliance]

So where did all this work roll in from? I guess your not far from Toledo, but did you have to go lookin', or did it walk in the door?