Ah yep,
my memory failed that time. It
was the 52" Weipert lathe over there, not Schiess. I really liked that lathe, it was a sweet machine. And goddamn that's funny about Phil McCracken. I always wondered why they called him that, haha. He was a basset hound looking S.O.B. you are absolutely right.
I did know about the tanks, I know a few guys who worked at Blaw-Knox during that time, including Mike Tutaco! I had Mike for my 3rd year apprentice classroom teacher. I wish that place hadn't crashed and burned. My machine shop teacher from high school worked there and his father too. His father was the superintendent of the B-K foundry - his name was Achilles Gatto. Good people.
Speaking of Jimmy chewing out Duane, I got him really reamed by Jimmy once. Somebody did something on the 38" Tuda that sheared a 2" splined shaft in the headstock, so we got tasked with making a new one. Turned the shaft and went to cut the splines on the Bridgeport. I ended up with the task of finishing the splines after the day shift managed to get everything roughed out just in time for afternoon shift, haha.
Anyway, I go to start finishing and I can NOT get a cut made without chatter from hell. I tried a new cutter, lighter cuts, heavier cuts, slower RPM, faster RPM...no dice. I finally grabbed the cutter and pushed up and down. Must have been a full ⅛" of play in the thrust direction. Son of a b... So I go and get Duane and he says "Did you try this? Did you try that?" Yup, tried it all. So he says , "Well, just make do and try to get it done," and heads back to the office. I'm thinking "Nah, that's B.S. - where's Jimmy... "
So I just bided my time until Jimmy made his last rounds of the day and as soon as he came out of the office I was on him like a fly on you know what. I explained the situation and he said "Well why didn't you get your foreman?" After I explained that I had tried and told him what Duane had said he got one hell of a fiery look in his eye and said "Wait here."
I saw him go into the office and stand in the doorway hollering at Duane for a good 10 minutes. They both walked out after that and Duane made a big show of checking out the spindle, heh. Then with Jimmy standing over his shoulder he said "OK, shut it down, lock it out and let's get it fixed. Go ahead and start tearing it apart and we'll order some new bearings." He gave me a pretty good bitching at later for going to Jimmy. It was totally worth it.
That press story still went around while I was there. That was a pretty decent sized sucker too, 500 ton was it? I remember pranking the afternoons lead man once with a dry ice "bomb" I tossed under that press. I swear he thought that thing blew a line or something, spent a good 15 minutes looking all over that thing top to bottom. Finally found the blown out plastic soda pop bottle. Never did find out who did it, luckily I was pretty well liked by all the guys, haha. I got the midnights jerk foreman before I left too - used a cigarette as a time delay fuse on an M80 up in the small bay rafters. Big old boom and cloud of dust when it went off. Here I was having been back at my 5" G&L for 5 minutes as honest looking as you please...
He had NO idea what had happened and was all over the place trying to figure it out.
And yeah, another bump for the slotter! Great machine, wish I had room for it.
Hope we're not boring any readers to tears with these old stories, haha.