Can anyone advise what these are?

I found these in some boxes of tooling I got from an old widows basement when I got the old Clausing 6339 lathe out of there. Can anyone advise what they are used for?
Thanks




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Gauges? Do any of the edgestamped numnbers match the varying hole diameters?

-Marty-

It is impossible to say what those are. Since you are in Nassau County, NY, this puts you on Long Island. From the '30's into maybe the 60's or a bit later, Long Island had aviation/defense industries ranging from firms like Grumman- building complete aircraft- to smaller subcontractors' shops and "spin off" industries such as tool-and-die shops, electroplating, plastics molding, etc.

My guess is what you have are some sort of either gauges or set-up tooling that was used on a some production basis. Could have been used for setting up assemblies such as landing gear, control linkages, or could have been used in the setup of production machine tools or production tooling, or as gauges for some production machining operation. Whatever these were, they were apparently heat-treated (given the black oxide on the inside surface), were apparently precision ground, and were stamped with an identification number. They are in a fitted wood box, so were a set, and were to be given careful handling. Typically, something like these items with an identification stamped on them would be referenced on a work-order or working drawing (a note such as: "check final size using gauge number---", or "setup the travel in ----- assembly using ----- number tool"). As I have often said in my posts, "dead men tell no tales". Obviously the guy who had this set of gauges or tooling in his possession is dead, and at most, assuming his widow is still amongst the living, you might find out where the guy worked. This is a long shot, as you might get an answer like: "he worked during WWII at Grumman, then started his own tool and die shop and did work for all the airplane factories".

Anytime I've been in old shops or cleaning out stuff left by deceased older machinists, there is invariable some of this sort of tooling. Sometimes it is gauges, sometimes it is ganged lathe tools or special form cutters with "spark-engraved" ID numbers, sometimes it is a drill jig or holding fixture. I've gotten answers like: "During WWII, my father (the deceased) and grandfather (also long gone) had a machine shop down in New Jersey and made parts for Curtiss-Wright". That is about as far as things go in learning what I have gotten along with what I really wanted (machine tools or things like dividing heads, vises, etc). I have a pail of "special" reamers a buddy gave me. About half those reamers have been ground to really oddball/non standard diameters. Neither fractional nor metric equivalents. The job number or ID number is spark-engraved on the shanks, and some are re-ground with pilots. Every so often, I get a need to open a hole to some odd diameter for clearance or to make a fit with some other pin or shaft, so I spend about 10-15 minutes eyeballing likely reamers from that pail and miking them.

I suspect what you have in that wood box is likely some hardened gauges or setup tooling. About the only re-use might be to stone off the rust and use them if you setup jobs on the table of a milling machine, something to block up an odd sized job on, or to land the "heel" of a clamping dog on. Put a file to the edge of one of those items in the box and see if it's hardened. If the file "skates" (does not cut), the parts are hardened. If unhardened, steel your heart (pardon the pun) and use them as stock for jobs you may do in the future, or modify them for tooling and fixturing of your own.

Sometimes, the tooling can be parted out and re-used (things like milling cutters, sp

ime I've been in old shops or cleaning out stuff left by deceased older machinists, there is invariable some of this sort of tooling. Sometimes it is gauges, sometimes it is ganged lathe tools or special form cutters with "spark-engraved" ID numbers, sometimes it is a drill jig or holding fixture. I've gotten answers like: "During WWII, my father (the deceased) and grandfather (also long gone) had a machine shop down in New Jersey and made parts for Curtiss-Wright". That is about as far as things go in learning what I have gotten along with what I really wanted (machine tools or things like dividing heads, vises, etc). I have a pail of "special" reamers a buddy gave me. About half those reamers have been ground to really oddball/non standard diameters. Neither fractional nor metric equivalents. The job number or ID number is spark-engraved on the shanks, and some are re-ground with pilots. Every so often, I get a need to open a hole to some odd diameter for clearance or to make a fit with some other pin or shaft, so I spend about 10-15 minutes eyeballing likely reamers from that pail and miking them.

I suspect what you have in that wood box is likely some hardened gauges or setup tooling. About the only re-use might be to stone off the rust and use them if you setup jobs on the table of a milling machine, something to block up an odd sized job on, or to land the "heel" of a clamping dog on. Put a file to the edge of one of those items in the box and see if it's hardened. If the file "skates" (does not cut), the parts are hardened. If unhardened, steel your heart (pardon the pun) and use them as stock for jobs you may do in the future, or modify them for tooling and fixturing of your own.

Sometimes, the tooling can be parted out and re-used (things like milling cutters, sp[/QUOTE]

You said it.You covered it. I too, would preserve these special items. Not use them for clamps on rough stuff. These may be special bearing insert tools, like you said.
I have yet to find the "Like" button but If I had.. I would have blown it out years ago.

They looked handy so he took them home when they were being pitched. The "T" number is a dead give away that they were once "tooling" for some outfit. When I was going through P&WA's apprenticeship over fifty years ago EVERY special tool they owned was identified with a "T" number - and had been designed and built in house for the most part

I'd add that when WWII ended, so did an immense amount of defense work. Whole plants built for the war effort were suddenly idled and in many case, shut down abruptly. In those plants, there were tens of thousands of machine tools of all shapes, sizes and types- ranging from toolroom machine tools to production machine tools. With those tens of thousands of machine tools on the production lines, there was what has to be hundreds of thousands of jigs, fixtures, gauges, setup tooling, die-sets, special cutting tools and specially adapted instruments for inspection work on a production basis.

There is an excellent youtube made from an old movie about a radial aircraft engine plant that went from full-bore production to complete shutdown within days of the Japanese surrender. Engines in the process of being built on the line were finished, but all else was halted like someone pulled the plug on it. Pallets and totes of rough forgings, castings, bar stock, ingots of aluminum, as well as machined and semi-machined parts were left at whatever stage of work they had been at when the order to cease work came. All of that kind of thing along with the jigs, fixtures, tooling, and much else may well have gone for scrap as the plant re-tooled for peacetime work, or was cleared out and assets sold off.

In the pre-CNC days, during WWII, any production work of parts for just about anything used in the war effort short of garments and foodstuffs was done on production machine tools. The production of parts relied on jigs, fixtures, special tooling, special gauges, etc as there was no CNC or NC machine tools. Adding to this was the fact that during WWII, aircraft relied on piston engines. These engines had a relatively short in-service life, so there was a constant stream of new engines and parts to repair or maintain engines was constantly flowing out of the factories. Add to that was the fact we were out-producing the Axis powers and were supplying our allies with everything from canned rations to planes, ships, vehicles, tanks, artillery, and munitions. There are old photos of freight trains on Long Island during WWII- whole trains of flatcars with military aircraft loaded for shipment. Wings removed or folded (carrier based planes), propellors removed, some crating and some protective coverings on the cockpit glazing or canopy, and everything seemingly coated with some kind of preservative. Whole trainloads of military aircraft were leaving Long Island for transport to ports of embarkation. Long Island, today, is thought of as congested suburbia. Back during WWII, it was a major aviation manufacturing center. Aircraft plants were built on what had been potato farms. The numbers of special tools made for producing those planes had to run into the hundreds of thousands. Those items in the fitted wood box probably were some of those special tools. The generation of people who worked in the aircraft and related plants and shops on Long Island during WWII are aging out or dead. The real estate where many of those plants and shops stood is now either cut up for subdivisions or is shopping malls or expressways (read: linear mass parking lots). I suppose you can look at those tools or gauges as having some historical significance. I always marvel when I realize a place that I never imagined as an industrial hub was producing war material, and some of that war material figured in key battles during WWII. Carrier based aircraft figured prominently in the war in the Pacific, and helped turn the tide of WWII in our favor. Whether what you have in the wooden case was ever used to make parts for carrier-based aircraft. Grumman was busy building fighters, and in fact, Grumman was so busy that production of the Avenger- I think- was given over to GM, even though it was a Grumman design. People on Long Island contributed massively to the war effort, and the guy who grabbed those gauges or tooling may well have spent WWII as a toolmaker or setup man in one of the aviation plants.

My wheel bearing press came with a half a dozen or so similar. No markings, but the press was made in Hencho.

Conduit punches look similar, perhaps a little deeper - and have a matching "cutter" which fits within the ID.

Leather cutters (punches) come to mind. Dinking press?

Joe in NH

Joe Michaels said:

It is impossible to say what those are. Since you are in Nassau County, NY, this puts you on Long Island. From the '30's into maybe the 60's or a bit later, Long Island had aviation/defense industries ranging from firms like Grumman- building complete aircraft- to smaller subcontractors' shops and "spin off" industries such as tool-and-die shops, electroplating, plastics molding, etc.

My guess is what you have are some sort of either gauges or set-up tooling that was used on a some production basis. Could have been used for setting up assemblies such as landing gear, control linkages, or could have been used in the setup of production machine tools or production tooling, or as gauges for some production machining operation. Whatever these were, they were apparently heat-treated (given the black oxide on the inside surface), were apparently precision ground, and were stamped with an identification number. They are in a fitted wood box, so were a set, and were to be given careful handling. Typically, something like these items with an identification stamped on them would be referenced on a work-order or working drawing (a note such as: "check final size using gauge number---", or "setup the travel in ----- assembly using ----- number tool"). As I have often said in my posts, "dead men tell no tales". Obviously the guy who had this set of gauges or tooling in his possession is dead, and at most, assuming his widow is still amongst the living, you might find out where the guy worked. This is a long shot, as you might get an answer like: "he worked during WWII at Grumman, then started his own tool and die shop and did work for all the airplane factories".

Anytime I've been in old shops or cleaning out stuff left by deceased older machinists, there is invariable some of this sort of tooling. Sometimes it is gauges, sometimes it is ganged lathe tools or special form cutters with "spark-engraved" ID numbers, sometimes it is a drill jig or holding fixture. I've gotten answers like: "During WWII, my father (the deceased) and grandfather (also long gone) had a machine shop down in New Jersey and made parts for Curtiss-Wright". That is about as far as things go in learning what I have gotten along with what I really wanted (machine tools or things like dividing heads, vises, etc). I have a pail of "special" reamers a buddy gave me. About half those reamers have been ground to really oddball/non standard diameters. Neither fractional nor metric equivalents. The job number or ID number is spark-engraved on the shanks, and some are re-ground with pilots. Every so often, I get a need to open a hole to some odd diameter for clearance or to make a fit with some other pin or shaft, so I spend about 10-15 minutes eyeballing likely reamers from that pail and miking them.

I suspect what you have in that wood box is likely some hardened gauges or setup tooling. About the only re-use might be to stone off the rust and use them if you setup jobs on the table of a milling machine, something to block up an odd sized job on, or to land the "heel" of a clamping dog on. Put a file to the edge of one of those items in the box and see if it's hardened. If the file "skates" (does not cut), the parts are hardened. If unhardened, steel your heart (pardon the pun) and use them as stock for jobs you may do in the future, or modify them for tooling and fixturing of your own.

Sometimes, the tooling can be parted out and re-used (things like milling cutters, sp

Click to expand...

Yes, you are right. He was a machinist for a company that took over the Sperry Gyroscope building in Garden City after the war. They made office supply folders in the production factory there. He worked in the machine shop that supported the factory. He left the company in the 1959 and set up a shop in his basement to work for himself for local customers. He bought a Clausing 6339 lathe for $1770, $15,000 in 2019 dollars (I found the receipt), and a Bridgeport to do his work. The mill was gone a few years before i got to grab the Clausing and the rest of the stuff left down there. Most of the stuff was various endmills and lathe cutting bits. And what seems like thousands of taps and dies. I have been busy with other crap for the past 8 years and i didnt get to look through the bins of tooling until recently. Another strange thing i found in the bin a couple of years back i cant figure the use for. I will get a photo and post it.
Anyway, the old guy was a machinist that left a bunch of mysteries in that basement. He died before i moved on the block 25 years ago. I heard there were several machinists living on the block over the years. Grumman, Fairchild, Sperry Gyroscope, were major employers. And the local airfields all had machine shops nearby that supported them. When i first got my Ham radio ticket in the early nineties, i used to chat with a bunch of retired engineers from Grumman who still lived locally in nassau county.
I wished i had been able to know him and learn from his experience before he died. The rest of the projects i had been busy with for a few years are done and i am finally starting to dig into the ten bins of tooling i was able to grab before the 1-800-GET-JUNK guy came in and cleaned the place out to sell for scrap. The Clausing is still in the pieces I had to break it down into to get it out of his basement, across the street, and down into mine. My Logan 200 does pretty much what I need it to do. My next purchase is a mill, either whatever the current model of a PM-45 is, or a used round column RF-30. I got shitloads of R8 tooling in those bins.

Here is another thing I found a while back in one of the bins.






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Radius cutting device?

Top adjustment lets you snug up or loosen fit of worm and wheel

The lower working end seems to be set up to hold a cutting bit. You can turn the end and tighten and lock the insert into the tool.


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not to hijack your thread, but since Grumman came up..my friend's father Stanley worked there;

I am guessing the old machinist worked for "Oxford Filing", a company in Garden City, LI, who manufactured file folders. Years ago, when I was a HS student, I learned of that firm.

Sperry Gyroscope had quite a history in its own right. It started in a building located in downtown Brooklyn. Sperry was a prolific inventor and built upon his knowledge of gyroscopes to develop automatic pilots (there are old photos of a pilot in a biplane, clearly not handling the controls while the plane flies along on auto pilot). I suspect this early auto pilot maintained a heading, but it was up to the pilot to maintain altitude and attitude of the aircraft. Kind of a two-dimensional auto pilot. Sperry also applied this to marine applications and developed an gyro controlled helm. I do not know when Sperry ceased to exist, but they were quite a firm in their day. Sperry was developing and building some very fine mechanical instrumentation, and an old family friend had been a machinist with them when they were still in Brooklyn.

You came onto your block at the end of a very different generation of people. I was born in 1950 and started working in machine shops in Long Island City (actually a neighborhood in the borough of Queens, inside NY City Limits) when I was a teenager. Back then, the shops were all over the place, and electro-mechanical instrumentation for defense, aviation, and for telecommunications was still in use. Many of the men who worked in those shops were German immigrants as well as some Polish, Swiss, Austrian, and Czech immigrants. It was not uncommon to hear German spoken in the shops in the '60's. The machinists and toolmakers had the wooden Gerstner chests, usually with a kind of grubby patina from oil and coolant mists in the shop's ambient air and the blackened fingers of the owners leaving a darker patina around each drawer pull. In the lids of the top tills, there were family photos, possibly a picture of postcard from their part of "the old country" along with a few handy reference cards for decimal equivalents and similar. Along with the chest came a few coffee cans and cigar boxes filled with things like high speed steel lathe tool bits ground for particular jobs, special cutting tools like end mills ground for a specific job, and similar. Back in those days, smoking in the workplace was a given, and those machinists and toolmakers generally walked around with something in their mouths. Some smoked pipes, many smoked cigars- quite a common thing back then- and some smoke cigarettes. The cigar boxes tell a lot about the man who was the machinist or toolmaker who filled them. I have one box, which had WWII era production tooling in it- from "Marsh-Wheeling Cigars, "still only 5 cents, two for 9 cents".

These guys usually wore white shop aprons, and often had clear plastic tubing for the "strings" on the aprons- the idea being if the apron got wound up in machinery, the plastic tubing would part company before the wearer got wound into things. These guys lived well ordered and simple lives. They rode the subways to work, saved up and bought homes in ethnic residential neighborhoods, put their kids through college and took an occasional trip back to "the old country". They were thrifty, and sometimes brought "government jobs" to the shop, stuff for home like brazing up a kid's busted bicycle frame or repairing some household item.

It was a different time in NYC and its environs, when jobs in the skilled machine trades were common and people in those trades were needed. Firms made medical and dental equipment, and these firms had toolrooms. Other firms made heavier machine products and supported things like the printing industry (NYC was the publishing center of the world back then). Firms like Kollsman Instrument in Queens made aviation instruments. Bulova Watch, also in Queens, was still producing mechanical watch movements and their toolmaker training was said to be top shelf. Alongside the Van Wyck Expressway, in Jamaica, Queens, the Shore Instrument Company was producing the "Scleroscope" hardness testers. There were steel rule die shops producing dies for the garment and shoe industries- both of which were major industries within NYC in those days. There were shops producing stuff for the defense industries. A classmate spent a summer with pillar files, putting chamfers on buckles for parachute harnesses that the shop he worked in was stamping out, having made the dies for the job. He was told that if the corners on the buckles were not properly chamfered, the shock on the harness when the 'chute opened could part the harness and cost the user his life. So, my classmate spent that summer deburring and chamfering buckle stampings. This was in a back alley shop run by a couple of recent immigrants who had a few machine tools and a couple of bloodthirsty punch presses.

It was also a very different time in NYC and its environs because people working in the skilled machine trades could afford to buy their own homes and live nicely. Often, some of these same toolmakers or machinists would get a Bridgeport, a lathe and a surface grinder of their own and take on work in their basements or garages- aside from the regular job in the shop. It was quite common. The fellow whose lathe you have gotten exemplified the breed and era I am trying to depict here.

As I've written, this is going back about 50 years, and it's a way of life and breed of people that are all long gone from NYC's 5 boroughs as well as Long Island.
Now, if a person does work in the skilled machine or metal fabrication trades, they usually cannot afford to live near where they work if it is within the 5 boroughs.

The area where the old shops were, in Long Island City, has been "yuppified" or "gentrified". Back when I was a teenager, you could walk down most blocks of Long Island City and find shops ranging from two or three men in a small tool and die shop to good sized shops. Supply houses also were located there, and Travers Tool started there as a small family operation. Now, there is not a machine shop or supply house to be found in that area, and the word is Amazon is coming in with some kind of regional headquarters. The industrial space is going for "loft housing" or businesses like trendy coffee shops and eateries or art galleries.

The oldtimer whose Clausing lathe you have gotten was of that old breed. Thrifty, highly skilled, living quietly and within his means and able to buy his own home.
Look around the stuff you got from his basement and see if you don't find coffee cans, biscuit or candy tins, and cigar boxes which contain tool bits, end mills, taps, dies, and odd parts from past jobs. You can get a sense of the man by that sort of thing. These were not men who smoked fancy Cuban cigars, and more likely White Owls or similar. Notes on stuff left by the oldtimer will also tell a lot. European handwriting is pretty easy to spot. As I said, these men were of a different era and are just about extinct. I was fortunate to "come up" in shops where they were foremen and journeymen.

BTW: My own shop abounds in 3 liter olive oil tins, used to hold a variety of stuff. I suppose someone poking through my shop when I am passed from this life will look at the loads of olive oil tins and my calligraphy with the paint markers and wonder who the hell the guy was who accumulated all that stuff. I imagine they might be saying something like: "Holy ----, this guy and his family LIVED on olive oil... what'd he do ? Lube his machine tools and fill his car's crankcase with the stuff ?"

I did get in the habit of taking a fine tip paint marker and lettering the "provenance" on my machine tools and equipment such as: "Purchased 20 October, 1985 from Grand Machinery, NYC" or "Purchased November 2012 from estate of 2nd owner ------, original owner: Ertel Engineering, Kingston, NY, shipped 26 July, 1943". I figure someday people such as those of us who participate in this 'board may come into my shop to clear it out and be asking the kinds of questions many of us ask: "Who was this guy and where did he get this lathe (or mill, or grinder, etc)"

thanks for that little saunter down memory lane, Joe. I'll have to copy that trick of writing the "provenance" of my machines directly on the unit. best way to insure the information stays with the machine, IF anyone cares.

the ending of Citizen Kane comes to mind, but with the marker burning off as the broken shards of the casting are lowered into the melt.

Grand Machinery Exchange, yup, didn't actually get any heavy iron there myself, but wish I hadn't let a few choice items there get away. Victor machine up the street, got a few interesting items from the detritus they abandoned when they moved to Brooklyn (13 years ago?), they landed on Bogart St in what became the hart of super trendy Bushwick, and had to move to Queens (speaking of that borough) 1 1/2 years ago. and then there was Frank Tracy bearings and power transmission with the wooden wheel turning in the window, down Center street. that is still turning where it landed at North Side Power Transmission (well, it was there , at least, maybe not turning the last time I went 8 months ago, could be a hole in the ground by now) here in Brooklyn on Morgan AV.

Cyanidekid:

Thanks for the kind words. Your recollection of Center Street brings back a lot of memories of Friday afternoons, after school. I was going to Brooklyn Tech HS, and some Friday afternoons, classmates and I would take the subway from DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn over to Canal or Lafayette St (the name of the stop eludes me, getting old, I guess). We'd browse through the used machinery dealers who always welcomed us kids from Brooklyn Tech and let us look at endless amounts of used machine tools packed tight in their stores. Frank Tracy was also the Boston Gear distributor, as well as providing millwright services "back in the day". In addition to the large wooden pulley turning in the window, I believe they had a setup of all manner of gearing furnished by Boston Gear arranged in an involved gear train and under power.

Some of the older Millwrights on a hydroelectric job in 1982 told me they had gone to courses given at night at Frank Tracy's. These millwrights were old enough then to have put up lineshafting. They told me that as apprentice boys, they had to use 3 lb drilling hammers and star drills to drill holes in the concrete ceiling slabs in industrial buildings, then set lead shields and mount wood lagging. After that, they said the real nasty job was carrying the lineshaft hangers (cast iron) up the ladders and holding them in position so a millwright on another ladder could drive lag screws to mount the hangers to the wood lagging. These were millwrights nearing retirement, and they had come through their time around 1938-40. I'm surprised to read that there was a successor to Frank Tracy and hope they survived.



Grand Machinery was owned by the Goodman family, and they were the very last old-school machine tool dealer to leave Center Street for Long Island. Grand Machinery had a model machine shop and model steam engine in the window gathering dust. I asked one of the owners about it and he said it was there from the time of his father and he had no clue about it. It was model machine tools and a model engine built by some nameless and forgotten machinist.

There was a whole sub culture of used machine tool dealers and the heavy machinery movers who populated those streets. It's all gone now, and aside from fading names and words like "Entire plants bought and sold... lathes, milling machines, power presses..." up on the brickwork of the old buildings, no one there has a clue as to what that district was about. It's all trendy stores selling clothing and similar and loft housing on the upper stories where machine tools once were packed in.

You mention Bushwick. Bushwick was home to the Rheingold Brewery, where I worked part time for a bit while an undergrad engineering student. Back then, Bushwick was old industrial properties and a fairly hazardous neighborhood to be wandering around. The Rheingold Brewery covered a few city blocks, but it's all gone, demolished to make way for some townhouses. The neighborhood around Brooklyn Tech HS (Fort Greene or Bed-Stuy ?) was equally hazardous back in the 60's. Now, those neighborhoods are highly desirable and residential properties that were gutted by drug junkies for copper and anything else, or used as "shooting galleries" (to shoot up hard drugs) are rebuilt and going for upwards of a million dollars. In the 60's, when we'd have extra periods for advanced machine shop, we'd leave 'Tech in groups, and some of us would take along a chunk or two of 1" round bar as we had a good possibility of being waylaid by the local street thugs.

Seems like every old industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn and Queens is becoming "gentrified" or whatever the new term is. People of modest means who lived there are getting squeezed out as the landlords renovate the old buildings where they had apartments and jack up the rents. Industrial space is vanishing as boutique hotels, restaurants and "clubs" (fancy name for a watering hole with entertainment) take over, or are converted to loft housing.

It was a very different world in the 60's and 70's when I was coming of age. While there was prevailent street crime, the wholesale painting of graffiti or "tagging" had not happened. At the same time, the breed of people who lived and worked in the shops and factories were fairly tough in their own right. Let a hoodlum hang out around their shop or factory and he was hollered at and threatened with a busted head or worse. As a sign of how the times were changing, around 1983, a buddy of mine from the midwest was with my wife and I and we were waiting on line for a table at the infamous Wo Hop, a basement Chinese restaurant that is part of the the original Chinatown. It is first come, first served, and the line forms on the stair down to the basement dining room. Cops, firemen, hookers, locals and anyone else needing a meal at all hours of the day or night eats there. It was a place we'd go when I was in college, hopping a subway train over from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (as it was then called) at all hours of the day or night when we'd be working on projects. Wo Hop is an institution. Anyhow, we were waiting on line and the people on the waiting line are generally friendly. We got to talking with a fellow who was a World War I veteran (this was 1983, so WWI vets were still around). Right about then, a few members of a certain minority came shouldering down the stair, calling everyone Motherf--rs, and shoving people aside. My buddy and I started to say something and my wife "shushed" us, saying we did not need to start trouble. The WWI vet heard us and let out a yell, calling on all the men present to "throw those bums out" and hollering that it was a sad day when men did not stand up for themselves and allowed hoodlums to prevail (in so many words). These were the kinds of men who worked in the old shops, and they had fine manners around most people, but you did not want to piss them off.

My own father was on 50% veterans disability due to injuries sustained during WWII. One night, when I was in college, Dad and I were sitting in Dad's car, waiting on my mother who had gone to pick up a prescription at the local pharmacy. No "Rite Aid" or "CVS", but a pharmacy with mortar and pestle and glass jugs with colored water in the window and an octagon tiles floor and big penny scale. Some young punk with his girlfriend tapped the old man's bumper in parking their own car. The punk came over to the old man's window and started hollering how the old man had not left him enough space, should learn to drive, etc. Dad ignored the punk. The punk made a bad mistake. He stuck a hand into Dad's car window. Dad had a piece of rebar under the front seat and just that quick, busted it over the back of the punk's hand, making sure to hit the knuckles. A loud and incoherent shriek followed by a string of curses came from the punk and his girlfriend. The girlfriend started in on Dad about what he'd done to her boyfriend. Dad's answer was to tell her: "Take your little boy and his kiddy-car home and learn to behave".

Dad was born in 1917 on the Lower East Side, and when he was a very small boy, his family moved to Williamsburgh, over in Brooklyn. Dad said that being tough was one thing, but there were certain blocks you just did not walk down. Ethnic differences were taken seriously and if you walked down the wrong block, getting the living
s--t beat out of you was a given. Dad said that some differences were settled on the docks or on flush deck barges moored there. Word would spread about a fight between two guys, maybe over a girl, maybe over anything at all. The venue for the fight was often the docks or one of the flush deck barges, and the fight usually ended when the loser was literally knocked into the East River. Dad's brother, my Uncle Jack, used to show he was tough by swimming in the East River and out to Governor's Island.

The old neighborhoods and the old industries and so much else that I knew in NY City (encompassing the 5 boroughs) is gone. The house I grew up in was a 4 family house Dad owned. Dad sold the house in 1987, knowing his clock was rapidly running out. The buyer paid Dad roughly 40 times what Dad had paid for the house in 1947 or 48. That buyer then demolished our old house and put up a single family house, 10 ft ceilings on the ground floor. Not one of our old neighbors lives on our old block. Most of the homes are either demolished & luxurious new homes crammed onto their sites, or the old homes were altered beyond recognition.

Not one of the old stores that were in our neighborhood exists. The buildings are the same, but the occupancy and facades are totally different.

I remember Brooklyn and Queens when industry was working there. There were working iron foundries in Greenpoint (section of Brooklyn), breweries, along with meat packing plants, a copper refinery, and all sorts of other manufacturing. I went to a Bar Mitzvah (Jewish coming of age ceremony) in Brooklyn a few years ago. The reception was held in a building that had been a pipe supply firm the when I was there years earlier. Old brickwork, open structural steel & diamond plate mezzanines are all the rage. Acoustics were horrible, noise enough to deafen anyone, so I wandered out into the street and schmoozed with relatives I had not seen in a dog's age. I guess that is the way of things, and the industrial past in NYC is an ancient age at this point. The old machinists and toolmakers who worked in the shops around NYC and out "on the island" during WWII and into the 70's are pretty nearly extinct. The OP bought his lathe and tooling from the widow of one of those oldtimers.

well, since you mentioned it;

when they closed up shop, all the lab gear was tossed in a dumpster, I bought some from a guy on Houston st, you may have learned some of ohm's law on this very unit.

I didn't realize Bulova was in Queens. I remember going over to a friend's house, probably in the late 1970's and there were hundreds of watch movements ticking away on their dining room table, presumably getting final adjustments. Like any kid, my friend was embarrassed by his parents and quickly steered us away from the watches to another room. (Wikipedia says they had a plant in Woodside, so I was in the right spot.)

Last time I spent any time there it hadn't changed too much. New groups of immigrants move in as the earlier immigrants are absorbed into the melting pot: the new folks were mostly korean when I was a kid and now I think they're from the Caucasus region/SW Asia. (A lot of industry was already vanishing when I was a kid there.)

The new Amazon location is very near there, so I think that all those little row houses are going to be getting renovated soon.

Yeah. My lady lives in Maspeth, around the corner from where the old Phelps - Dodge copper smelting plant was.

Phelps Dodge—A Long History Of Dumping On Maspeth

That whole area of Queens has a rich manufacturing history.


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The guy kept everything. I sold a few Monarch lathe manuals from the early fifties I found there. I even found the original receipt for the Clausing.




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