67 replies to this topic

[Mr. M]

Anyone recognize this? Show us what you have!

Attached Images

• 

[Phil Hackett]

Champion Tech-Check

[Mr. M]

What did it check?

[team burrito]

i got one & still use it!

[Bill from NH]

What did it check?

 

Tire min. dia front & rear, tire min. width front, max, width rear, max car width 3.25", max. hub to hub width at wheels 3.0", & 1/16" chassis to track clearance.  You could check all these, for I think, a couple bucks.

[Mr. M]

Yes, let’s see some other early tools.

[Dave Crevie]

Ha! You asked for it. 1917 vintage Pratt and Whitney jig borer. Used to make tooling to produce bomb fuses in WWI, then went to Springfield Armory to make rifle parts for WWII. Sold as war surplus to Automatic Electric after the war, then sold to Dagger tool in the 1960's. I used it there for seven years, until it was sold through a machinery auction in 1987. Lost track of it after that. Second oldest machine I ever used, second only to a 1895 Hendy flat belt drive lathe. Have a picture of that somewhere, too. 

 

 

Equipped with a DRO, it is shown here on a skid at the auction warehouse.

[Mr. M]

Don’t need any CNC!

[Dave Crevie]

Sitting here, thinking back at how I lived through the years that computerized machining developed, I'm just so amazed. When I started, everything was done off the increments on the machine handles. Then Trav-A-Dials came out, and we now had an accurate method of knowing just where the tables and carriages were. They didn't care how much play was in the lead screws of the machine, being unaffected by screw backlash. We probably used those for ten years or so, and the DRO, digital read out, came along. These actually did about the same thing as the Trav-A-Dials, but in a digital format that could not only give you the distance from the original datum point, but allowed you to move from co-ordinate point to co-ordinate point by changing the display.

 

Then the big explosion. Machines began being fitted with NC, Numerical Controls. This advancement took the job of the machine operator. Using the same positioning system as the DRO, info from the reader head was fed into a processor, that would direct motors on the machine's lead screws to move the table or carriage to a new location. It was a closed loop system, using the info from the reader head to tell the motors where to stop. Then the processor would read a ticker tape, which had information on where the table was to move to next, and the motor would move until the reader head sent back info that the table had reached it's destination. (there is a lot more involved here, such as cutter speeds and feeds, Y axis depth, I have over simplified the procedure).    

 

It wasn't long before those computer science wiz kids figured out how to integrate a full computer into the NC system. This became known as CNC, or Computerized Numerical Controls. It gave the NC system so much more power. It added a full Y axis that could perform contour movements. It allowed you to program jobs off-line. That is, the machine could be performing one job while you program the next at separate computer. 

 

From there they just started adding additional functions that the machine could do. These were controlled as "axis". Most common is 5 axis controls, which I swear were developed to drive programmers like me into hysterics.

 

And that is where we are.   

[Phil Hackett]

Dave,

I learned to code g-code on an old Fridan Flexowriter. Editing was a pain as you had to "reload" the punched tape into the machine (Flexowriter) and then make the edit which required to you to start at the beginning of the program and move line by line down to the edit and then move the editor all the way to the end and then repunch a tape... None of this fancy opening the file and jumping directly to the edit needed. At school I was entrusted to enter programs that the department generated for their own use. I guess my entries had very few errors compared to the rest of the students.

 

Also, at  that time each line of g-code *required* an N-number on every line and an entry (a tab character) for each of the axises regardless if they were being moved or not. Fixed formatting was another PIA. Oh... and having to parse arcs and circles as they crossed quadrants... fun stuff. Now it's a mere R-word and the ending point for circles... none of that I,J,K arc center junk....

 

Today's kids don't know good they have it.

[Eddie Fleming]

I have no idea where I got this but I have had it for years.

Attached Images

• 

[Dave Crevie]

 

I learned to code g-code on an old Fridan Flexowriter. Editing was a pain as you had to "reload" the punched tape into the machine (Flexowriter) and then make the edit which required to you to start at the beginning of the program and move line by line down to the edit and then move the editor all the way to the end and then repunch a tape...

And how many times did we sit and wonder who came up with this BS system. And why they couldn't use magnetic tape instead of paper ticker tape, which would tear and wear out quickly? 

 

None of this fancy opening the file and jumping directly to the edit needed. 

I never realized how much I appreciated the full CRT screen until you said that.  

 

Also, at  that time each line of g-code *required* an N-number on every line and an entry (a tab character) for each of the axises regardless if they were being moved or not. Fixed formatting was another PIA. Oh... and having to parse arcs and circles as they crossed quadrants... fun stuff. Now it's a mere R-word and the ending point for circles... none of that I,J,K arc center junk....

Certainly one of the biggest boons to CNC programming is the carry-over of data from one command to the next. You don't have to punch in all the numbers again, just the new co-ordinates. Imagine writing a program to make something as simple as a slot car wheel hub in a 5-axis machining center if every step had to be written separately. 

Now, you just take the 3-D model and load into the machine. It does all the rest.

 

Today's kids don't know good they have it. 

True. When I started everything was manual. Just moving to the ticker tape NCs was a big jump, and all the industry publications lauded them. It was going to re-invent manufacturing. And it did, but was only the start. 

The Apollo space capsel had less computer power than a flip phone, but now we are talking about going to Mars on the Orion. Technology marches on.

[Bill from NH]

I have no idea where I got this but I have had it for years.

  

I forget who first made them, but it was in the early '70s when the downward angle was first put on the front of side wings. My old one is a Parma #734. I have the instruction sheet that came with it but have no idea when I bought it. In the '70s Parma was doing a thriving mail order business. What I couldn't get locally came from them or Speed & Sport except a few arms.

[Eddie Fleming]

Another old one I have not used for years.

Attached Images

• 

[Mr. M]

The tech tool in #11 was first made by Race Pace Bill Pinch. I have the first prototype. Ken McDowel knocked it off and sold it out of Parma, never said anything to Bill about it. True story. This was in the early 1980s.

[zipper]

>>Another old one I have not used for years>>

 

I do have it somewhere - last time used tweaking 1/12 RC cars chassis...

[Bill from NH]

Another old one I have not used for years.

 

That's a John Thorp Fiddlestick, the first to be sold to slot racers. I keep mine in a capped Xacto knife tube. They can be graduated using a gram scale.

[Dave Crevie]

This is overly long, so skip through the talky parts. It's about a shop that still has, and uses, turn of the (20th) century machines. Amid the clutter are some interesting hand tools and small bench type machines.

 

[Phil Hackett]

Sonic's first machine was a Brown & Sharpe #0 (3/4" capacity) screw machine. It was originally line-shaft driven and then "converted" to a Turner Drive so it didn't need the line shafting to be useful. We didn't know anything about this machine except that when we needed parts and the parts suppliers asked for the serial number and the answer was "4250" they replied "Is that all?"....

 

The machine was built in 1916 and worked OK for our purposes. I personally disliked it but John thought it was just fine. I had a problem working around a 4 foot long leather belts running in air without any guarding. It eventually was sold and replaced with much more modern machinery without exposed belts flying through the air. It also wasn't worth "rebuilding" as the parts needed, much less than the fitting of the parts, were more than the machine's worth.

 

I traded a Unimat SL lathe with a bunch of accessories for that equipment. I'm not sure who got the better deal me or the seller.

[Dave Crevie]

What struck me first was the clutter and mess. I worked for a place like that for a short time. A very short time. The journeymen wouldn't clean up after themselves. They were "above being janitors". I would clean whatever machine I was working in, whether I made the mess or not. But I wasn't going to be a janitor, either. I was well past my apprentiship.  

[NSwanberg]

I don't care how skilled a person is in the shop. Cleaning up is part of the job. It is consideration for the person that follows you. The stories I could tell. Electricians are the worst.

[Dave Crevie]

From Hagerty Bullitin;

 

https://www.hagerty....3a0da50aaffc743

[Wizard Of Iz]

Not slot car related .... but still an old "tool."

 

This oil can was used in a garage that my grandfather and his brother operated in the late 1940s - early 1950s.

 

I still use it every oil change.

 

[Dave Crevie]

Old service station stuff is still selling good at the "petroliana" meets. Oilzum brand oil bottles are bringing unbelievable money. 

 

I still have Pennsoil Racing oil in unopened paper cans from the '60's. Probably about 30 years ago a guy I was pitted with at the Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival offered me $50/can. I sold him six, but kept the other dozen that were left in the opened case. (I had used 6 cans)  Still out in the garage. Wonder what they are worth now.    

[Gary Bluestone]

These cans came from my Dad's gas station, once empty, we cut off the tops and used them to store hardware. Sold a few on Facebook