rivett608
Diamond
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2002
- Location
- Kansas City, Mo.
With all the poisoning of spies in the news it made me think this might be of current interest. Some of you may remember the "History Detectives" show on PBS about the the poison pin carried by the U-2 pilot Gary F. Powers back in 1960...... here is the link to that thread...
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/12604.html?
The short version of this story is I bought a bunch of tools at auction about 1985 of a machinist who worked at Fort Detrick.... His name was Milton Frank..... As always they only put a tiny portion of what they found out on the air..... one thing not shown was some of the earlier attempts at the design.... he even tried to make a spring loaded version and believe me those are some little coil springs...... the folks from the show sent me copies of all the stuff they dug up and that has been some fascinating reading..... the government spent between 2 and 3 Million dollars, remember that is late 1950's dollars to develop this poison and it's delivery system (the pin).......I went to back east to meet with the Frank's grandsons and hear first hand about their grand father who was quite the machinist...... funny thing is it is almost the same story as so many uncredited and so skilled of men....... only a 5th grade education... self taught.... could make and fix anything...... when he went to work for SOD they built him his own shop in a prefab trailer...... they equipped it with anything he desired and put a fence around it with a 24 hour armed military guard and this was inside the guarded SOD area inside a highly guarded Army base....... I remember as a kid in the 1960's we would drive by Ft. Detrick on the way to my grandparents and dad would tell us "over there past the gate is a super secret place where the government does nasty things"
Mr. Frank retired I think in either 63 or 65 and moved his tools to his home shop were he worked on guns for folks.... he died in 68 and his widow locked the doors to his shop...... when she died in 85 the place was auctioned and this was in one of the box lots......... what remains unanswered is.... what else do I have.... there was a lot of strange stuff with it like eye glass hinges etc........ what else did other folks get.... do they even know it....... and how much got thrown away? BTW the shop was officially cleaned out the day after his death....... all makes for an interesting bit of history.... so here is what I found..... a newspaper clipping with two pins stuck in it......
How was the pin made? after a few attempts it was so simple.... a piece of hypodermic needle with a pointed end soldered to it.... then a # 80 drill bit sharpened to a long point and soldered into a pin head..... when put in it's protective sheath it is safe....
Mr. Frank at work in his shop.... they sure bought him a nice lathe...
A close up this drilling attachment......
And he had a smaller lathe... looks like a Levin...... I wonder if it was fun to be making all this James Bond kind of stuff for real.... or really stressful?
And I know some of you will ask... have I tried to make one?..... well this time I went the other way... instead of making small stuff like I normally do I made a bigger than real one..... it is much easier to show this o folks than the little one... maybe safer too?
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/12604.html?
The short version of this story is I bought a bunch of tools at auction about 1985 of a machinist who worked at Fort Detrick.... His name was Milton Frank..... As always they only put a tiny portion of what they found out on the air..... one thing not shown was some of the earlier attempts at the design.... he even tried to make a spring loaded version and believe me those are some little coil springs...... the folks from the show sent me copies of all the stuff they dug up and that has been some fascinating reading..... the government spent between 2 and 3 Million dollars, remember that is late 1950's dollars to develop this poison and it's delivery system (the pin).......I went to back east to meet with the Frank's grandsons and hear first hand about their grand father who was quite the machinist...... funny thing is it is almost the same story as so many uncredited and so skilled of men....... only a 5th grade education... self taught.... could make and fix anything...... when he went to work for SOD they built him his own shop in a prefab trailer...... they equipped it with anything he desired and put a fence around it with a 24 hour armed military guard and this was inside the guarded SOD area inside a highly guarded Army base....... I remember as a kid in the 1960's we would drive by Ft. Detrick on the way to my grandparents and dad would tell us "over there past the gate is a super secret place where the government does nasty things"
Mr. Frank retired I think in either 63 or 65 and moved his tools to his home shop were he worked on guns for folks.... he died in 68 and his widow locked the doors to his shop...... when she died in 85 the place was auctioned and this was in one of the box lots......... what remains unanswered is.... what else do I have.... there was a lot of strange stuff with it like eye glass hinges etc........ what else did other folks get.... do they even know it....... and how much got thrown away? BTW the shop was officially cleaned out the day after his death....... all makes for an interesting bit of history.... so here is what I found..... a newspaper clipping with two pins stuck in it......
How was the pin made? after a few attempts it was so simple.... a piece of hypodermic needle with a pointed end soldered to it.... then a # 80 drill bit sharpened to a long point and soldered into a pin head..... when put in it's protective sheath it is safe....
Mr. Frank at work in his shop.... they sure bought him a nice lathe...
A close up this drilling attachment......
And he had a smaller lathe... looks like a Levin...... I wonder if it was fun to be making all this James Bond kind of stuff for real.... or really stressful?
And I know some of you will ask... have I tried to make one?..... well this time I went the other way... instead of making small stuff like I normally do I made a bigger than real one..... it is much easier to show this o folks than the little one... maybe safer too?