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G Mac

Plastic
Joined
Mar 11, 2021
Location
Hilton,NY
Hello..I joined the PM-site last week. I operate a one-man shop near Rochester,NY. After a four-year apprenticeship at the Newport News Shipyard, I worked at Kodak,Rochester, where I was introduced to the planer. After leaving Kodak, I started my shop, with one Rockford-planer. Five years later, I was able to purchase the planer that I had ran at Kodak. The first machine that I bought is from app. 1937, and has a 44" x 120" table. The Kodak-planer, which was purchased new in 1956, also a Rockford, is 60" x 144". Most of my work comes from other machine shops. I plane aluminum, tool-steels, 440C, Haynes 230, titanium, 316ss,718 hot-finish, and plastics. This is my 20th year. Gordie McElwain/McElwain Machine/650 Lake Ave/Hilton,NY
 
Hi, Ron,
Up until covid, I was as busy as I wanted to be. For the last five years or so, I had about 5-steady customers. Two of them didn't send any work during 2020.
The good news is, yesterday, one of them called and has a job for me. This customer has large boring-mills mainly, and has been real busy. Thanks for the note!
I hope you and your family are healthy, and you are successfull in your work. Gordie
 
Hi, Rick,
I am not real handy with high-tech devices,(that's why I run planers) but I will get some help and put a photo or two on this forum. What kind of work are you into?
Thanks for the interest. Gordie
 
Hi, Rick,
I am not real handy with high-tech devices,(that's why I run planers) but I will get some help and put a photo or two on this forum. What kind of work are you into?
Thanks for the interest. Gordie
I worked on farm machinery for a long time then was a fire truck mechanic at the local Air National Guard and am supposed to be retired but since I have been a volunteer fireman for a long time, I am now a full time EMTs like machine work and have had a one or more lathes for well over 40 years and have had a milling machine for at least 20 years. I worked for a buddy for a few years after retirement who bends tubing but also produces tooling for shaping sheet metal.
 
I have an article from the September 1985 issue of American Machinist titled "Machine building at Kodak." It's about Eastman Kodak's Shops Division at Rochester which was largely responsible for building the equipment for proprietary (hence the need to do it in-house) production processes of sensitized goods, i.e. photographic paper paper and film. At the time the division was housed in three buildings and had 750 machine tools and a staff that included 600 skilled craftsman,"predominately mold makers, tool-and die-makers, model builders, and machinists."

David
 
I have an article from the September 1985 issue of American Machinist titled "Machine building at Kodak." It's about Eastman Kodak's Shops Division at Rochester which was largely responsible for building the equipment for proprietary (hence the need to do it in-house) production processes of sensitized goods, i.e. photographic paper paper and film. At the time the division was housed in three buildings and had 750 machine tools and a staff that included 600 skilled craftsman,"predominately mold makers, tool-and die-makers, model builders, and machinists."David

This is interesting, thanks for posting. 600 skilled craftsmen, That probably more than Ford's had at the Tool & Die plant at the Rouge or GM at the tool & Die plant at Flint.
 
Planing metal in Hilton,NY.

What were they making at Kodak that needed a 60" x 144" planer?
Hi, SIP 6A,
The large planer was needed for large steel/ss plates that were the base for film-coating equipment. Huge stainless weldments were machined for coating-machinery. Before CNC, planers did a wide variety of jobs. One of the smaller planers had a tracer-attachment, and one of the specialty-jobs
was producing a "sink", for one of the coating machines. We would start with a piece of titanium, app. 2" x 3" x 55", and using a phenalic-template, would slowly, start plunging the shape of the sink. Another job that stood-out was a 60" high stainless-base, which had a couple of tons of concrete in
the bottom, to eliminate vibration during the coating-process. This job was at the limit of the planer's height, and I think it weighed about 6 tons, total. The table on the planer weighs 7 tons. For heavy-jobs like this, we would switch to the "slow-return" for the table.
 
HI, Old Dave,
Towards the end of my time at Kodak, a group went all over Kodak Park, looking to see how many "unknown" machine shops were actually in the plant. It seemed like
almost every building had a back-room with a Bridgeport, or a lathe, drill-press,etc. They counted about 100 shops that management wasn't aware of.
 
HI, Old Dave,
Towards the end of my time at Kodak, a group went all over Kodak Park, looking to see how many "unknown" machine shops were actually in the plant. It seemed like
almost every building had a back-room with a Bridgeport, or a lathe, drill-press,etc. They counted about 100 shops that management wasn't aware of.

Thank you for this.

The article I cited mentioned a separate shop facility that management would have been aware of, the one that provided similar support for the Kodak Apparatus Division which manufactured "cameras, slide projectors, lenses, office and information-processing equipment, X-ray and other medical equipment, photo-processing equipment, etc..." Not mentioned here so I will, Kodak also made optical comparators. KAD would have made the back-up mirror lens for the Hubble Space Telescope. They did this under sub-contract with Perkin-Elmer. Perkin-Elmer understandably but unfortunately chose to use the lens they made instead. It had a built-in error that the Kodak lens did not. The Kodak lens is now in the National Air and Space Museum.

David
 
G Mac,
I am from Buffalo NY.
I purchased a Brown and Sharpe #13 grinder.
It had a sticker saying, "Janus Air Permit Required".
I did some research, and I believe the Janus complex was
a building on the Kodak grounds in Rochester. Can you confirm
there is such a place where my grinder might have come from ?
The grinder was used to grind rubber rolls for some purpose.
It has fabricated (by Kodak?) wheel guards with a vacuum port.
I guess that is what the ?clean? air permit was for.

Also, I bought a Hendey Tool and Gaugemakers lathe. The story goes
that it was from a former employee of Kodak, and he bought the lathe
from them for his own use. Can you say whether Kodak even had Hendey
T&G lathes at their complex? As in, could this story about my lathe
even be possibly true ?
Thanks-
--Doozer
 
Planing metal in Hilton,NY.

G Mac,
I am from Buffalo NY.
I purchased a Brown and Sharpe #13 grinder.
It had a sticker saying, "Janus Air Permit Required".
I did some research, and I believe the Janus complex was
a building on the Kodak grounds in Rochester. Can you confirm
there is such a place where my grinder might have come from ?
The grinder was used to grind rubber rolls for some purpose.
It has fabricated (by Kodak?) wheel guards with a vacuum port.
I guess that is what the ?clean? air permit was for.

Also, I bought a Hendey Tool and Gaugemakers lathe. The story goes
that it was from a former employee of Kodak, and he bought the lathe
from them for his own use. Can you say whether Kodak even had Hendey
T&G lathes at their complex? As in, could this story about my lathe
even be possibly true ?
Thanks-
--Doozer

Hi, Doozer,
I do not know anything about the "Janus Air"....I never saw that brand of lathe during my time at Kodak. Not sure about the "Janus" building, either.
That complex was so big; Kodak Park was seven miles long. In it's prime, I think there were 68K employees in Rochester. Thanks for your inquiry.

G Mac
 








 
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