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Riding The Cut

Thanks for posting the picture of the fellow "riding the cut". When I first saw the title, I was thinking it would be a photo of a "planer hand" sitting on the table of a working planer as they sometimes did on short-stroke jobs.

The picture brings to mind a story the late Mike Korol, an erector for Skinner Steam Engines, told me. Mike came through his time as a journeyman machinist in what was called a "heavy machine shop" in NY City in 1939. He applied for and was hired on at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard as a machinist. To get there from NYC, Mike took a train to the west coast, and shipped as a work-away aboard a Matson Lines steamer, working as an engine room wiper. On arrival at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, after being formally hired on and taking an oath, Mike was taken to the heavy machine shop where he'd be working. He was introduced to his foreman or leader. Mike said he had never seen such large lathes in his life, and was assigned to one such lathe to turn a length of line shafting for a ship. Mike, with a little help, figured out the big lathe, and got to work- the job already being setup in the lathe. He took the remaining cuts and the drawing called for polishing the journals and the run of the shaft between them. Mike had no clue as to how to polish a shaft so large, and asked the machinist on the next lathe. That machinist and the leader showed Mike how it was done. A piece of wide leather belting with a heavy cast iron weight attacked to one end and a piece of wire rope attached to the other end was the "polisher". This piece of belting was soaked in oil and emery dust, making a fairly coarse lapping compound. The belting, having been charged with oil and emery dust was then hung over the section of shafting to be polished, weight on the off-side of the lathe, and wire rope made onto a bolt on the carriage. Mike was given a tallow pot full of more oil and told to start his lathe. There was a seat on a bracket off the carriage, which Mike said was pretty much like an old farm implement or tractor seat. The leader and the other machinist told Mike to get comfortable in that seat and work the "rapid" with his foot, scooting the carriage up and back while that piece of belting with the abrasive mix got pulled along with it. Mike said he found it quite funny at the time, as he had come through his time in a shop owned by German immigrants. He said in the shop where he'd served his apprenticeship, standing still, let alone sitting down, was verboten. Here, he was being paid to ride up and back on the carriage of his lathe.

Mike went on to work on the largest vertical boring mill in the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. A frequent job on that VBM was to remachine the turntable rings for the heavy gun turrets on the battleships. These were made in two halves and were made of bronze. The gun turret rode on rollers, which ran on those turntable rings. After some gunnery practice, the turntable rings got divots pounded into them by the rollers under the turrets. The rings had to be re-faced, and were brought in as halves and reassembled on the big VBM's chuck plate. Mike said he used a surveyor's level to do some of the setup work. He said to check the setup of the assembled ring for face runout, he'd start the big VBM at its slowest speed and walk backwards on the table while watching a dial indicator set in the tool holder. Year later, I had occasion to do the same thing on a smaller Betts VBM with a base ring from one of our hydro turbines. Of course, I thought of Mike Korol as I walked backwards in place on that VBM.

On subsequent hydro turbine work on vertical boring mills, I had occasion to get right up on the table to check surface finish or read dial indicators with the VBM running. It is a little bit of a strange sensation to be walking backwards in place to maintain your position relative to the rail of the VBM, and probably not allowed anymore in this new era of protecting us from every imaginable potential hazard.
 
I was never a big fan of sitting down near a large machine. I liked to be able to leap out of the way when things went wrong !

I've rode on a few planer tables though. Getting on was easy, most had a set of wooden steps next to the table and you just walked up the steps and stepped onto the table, after all you had 20 to 30 feet of table to aim at.

Stepping off the moving table onto the 24 inch wide steps, not so easy.

Regards Tyrone.
 
Note the dial indicator mounted to check the depth of cut or note any cross or compound slide shifts mid-cut. Gotta love those Invisibility Cloak safety glasses.
 








 
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