As was common in most commercial buildings, our restrooms at J&L had tankless toilets. These units were able to accomplish their job because they use water at a greater volume and pressure than the toilets in our home. Once the job is complete, just a pull (or kick) on the lever will create a rush of water into the bowl. We are all familiar with this drill; sometimes things don’t work out according to plans, though……………..

One day we were all startled by shrieking coming from the ladies room. This went on for several seconds, followed by the exit of one of the office ladies. But we were not prepared to see what was to follow. The flushing procedure had been followed properly, except that the flush valve had broken off at the wall connection, apparently from corrosion. So a full, high pressure stream of water was released into the ladies room; it didn’t take long to cover the floor, and start coming out into the office. Any of us who had boxes stored on the floor quickly picked them up and put them on our desks. By this time water was literally gushing out into the engineering office. Because the ladies room was close to the down ramp into the grinder assembly area, that became a rapids of sorts. This must have gone on for several minutes, as we had to notify the plant maintenance department, and they were not sure where the main shutoff was. Needless to say, there was much damage to the tile flooring from this (it’s one thing to mop a floor, quite another when several inches of water stand on it).

Later it was determined that the lady had been trapped in her stall from the force of the water (and thoroughly soaked). It took her a few seconds to escape. She took  the rest of the day off……….

You might call this a “lighter moment” in the workday, and I’m sure all of us have similar stories to tell. And that is one of the reasons I have been writing these stories; trying to get others to take initiative and perhaps at least record these moments in time. Because they will disappear into the past if they are not written down. There are certainly many stories I cannot tell that happened at J&L, others have to relate them to me, as I was stationed in the engineering area. And plant #2 comparators was really unknown to us in the main building. I didn’t have a technical knowledge about the optical measuring machinery at all, until later in my career, after J&L closed.

I do have a small hardcover book that J&L published in 1920, titled “The Hartness Screw Thread Comparator For Accurate And Rapid Screw Gaging”. It’s a 46 page description on how the device worked. I bought it at a tag sale in Proctor years ago for 5 cents!!

The J&L TNC lathe really revolutionized the industry; you cannot find an NC lathe today that does not have many of the characteristics that the TNC had. They were a big hit at the Chicago Machine Tool Shows. We were kept very busy engineering all the various models and options. But the biggest sensation was the “Production Center” model, which was basically a combi configuration with powered end turret tools. On a standard lathe, the cutting tools are basically static; the cutting action is caused by rotating the workpiece past the cutting edge; on the production center model, not only could we rotate the workpiece at normal RPM for O.D. turning with the side turret (like the combi), we could also closely control the work rotation axis when doing machining from the end turret. With the ability to rotate various cutters on the eight sided (octagonal) end turret, we could do very complex contouring type machining, using the attached end turret servomotor to power milling cutters. Thus the customer could quite often do their turning, drilling, tapping and milling on one machine. I think these were only offered in the 4-1/2″ B size envelope, and not too many were made (with all the extra servo-controlled axes, they were quite expensive).

One of the many options that J&L offered with their lathes was a barfeed attachment. This unit was floor mounted to the left of the machine, and its purpose was to cradle the long pieces of barstock that was the raw material for the final machined workpiece. (the barstock is feed into the machine, thru the rear of the spindle, thru the chuck, to a specific distance; the bar stock is then gripped by the work spindle chuck, the machining takes place, the finished piece is cut off into a catcher, and the cycle continues until the barstock is used up). Sometimes it was more economical to use a barfeed instead of machining parts individually. I use the word “cradle” only to clarify that these bars are contained somewhat. Being around a lathe with a barfeed unit can be a very unnerving experience; it really is quite impossible to contain the “whiplash” that a rotating steel bar creates (especially in the larger sizes). J&L had a big cast iron unit that dated back to their earlier machines, and it did an admirable job with the smaller O.D. bars. Plus, it totally enclosed said bar, lessening the “scare factor”. But there were other barfeed manufacturers that we got involved with. I remember specifically a unit that was built for 6″ O.D. bars, I think the company name was “Pilot”(the owner was a pilot, maybe WW2).  We had sold one of these with a lathe order, and I went down to their plant (I think it was in Connecticut), to see it. Their design consisted of several shaft and roller assemblies that surrounded the barstock. When we finally got it set up on our lathe, with 6” heavy-walled steel tubing, out in the open and visible, it was pretty scarey. I believe this machine was sold to a bearing manufacturer (Fafnir?), who planned on making bearing races. A lot of our work on barfeed units led us to create a “straightness specification” so that the customer knew they couldn’t run just ordinary barstock (which was way too crooked).

The TNC slant bed lathe was becoming very popular in the marketplace when I was transferred from grinder engineering. Up until this time, the basic lathe had remained pretty much the same for many years (with a “flat” bed). The big improvement was of course the tilting of the work slide / carriage assembly toward the operator. This allowed the chips generated during machining to drop away into the base, instead of building up around the slide. Most customers purchased the optional chip conveyor which would carry those chips outside the machine and into a separate container, where they could be disposed of easily. Another advantage of tilting the slides was the fact that they were now easier to reach from the operators position; he could change and adjust the various tools without having to reach very far.

The TNC lathe line was offered in many forms; the most popular was a model called the “Combi”. It had a single slide which mounted both a side turret and end turret. The side turret (sometimes called a “round” turret), had slots for six square shank turning tools. It was used mainly for OD turning and profiling. The end turret had six sides (hexagon shaped), each side was machined to accept various boring tools and toolholders. It usually had boring bars that were used for boring and / or threading the workpiece. The combi could cover most workpiece machining configurations . Even though we sold more combis than anything, they could not do everything. If a customer had a long workpiece that required machining on the OD only, we offered a model which had a tailstock and a narrow slide with a side turret. The work could be held on each end, and the side turret was free to machine the OD. This was our “Shaft” model, and it could be had in several bed lengths, depending on what the customer needed.  A variation on the shaft model was the “Universal”; it had a tailstock, and a single slide with both a side and end turret. With the tailstock moved out of the way to the right, it could do side and end machining like the combi; when using the tailstock, the side turret is used to do OD work (although the programmer had to use caution because the end turret could come in contact with the workpiece). Another variation was the “Chucker” model, which was fitted with an end turret only. Basically used on workpieces that required end boring and limited OD machining. The “Four Axis” model had two separate slides, one having the side turret for OD turning, and a second slide equipped with an end turret.

These first TNC’s were offered in three different spindle sizes, 3″, 4-1/2″ and 6″. These numbers referred to the spindle thru hole capacity. As an example, the official machine model might be called a “312 Combi”, which is a combi model with a 3″ capacity spindle, and a 12″ chuck. The “B” designation referred to the model series. These were “B” series machines, the most popular sellers. J&L also offered a family of larger TNC’s which were designated as “C” series and “D” series, equipped for machining larger workpieces. I will review those machines in a later installment.

My new position as the “Tooling Guy” was quite a change for me. Back in the grinder engineering group I was doing layout and design work on customers orders. My new position did not require any real creative work, which I missed. But that would come in due time. There were only so many turning and boring tools to document and catalog, and when that was done, I slowly became involved in various lathe related projects. Most of my early exposure consisted of helping some of the veteran designers with small pieces of their jobs. I slowly became familiar with the build structure of a lathe, its various sub-assemblies, and how everything came together on the assembly floor.

One of the best ways to learn about the structure of a machine is to study the machine manual that we provided to our customers. This book had all the major sub-assemblies shown in exploded views, all the parts being numbered and keyed to a parts list. These manuals were forever out of date, because improvements were being made all the time. But the ability to visualize how things went together was important to me. J&L had a separate group of people who created the manuals and kept them updated, both electrical, mechanical and programming. (they were located on the top floor of the Technical Center). A fella by the name of Bill Wilson headed up the group. The drawings in these manuals were all done by hand, using an outside firm from Massachusetts. I remember one of these guys walking around on the assembly floor, observing the machinery. He had a sketch board and straightedge, and would rough sketch up various items. This was before any computer drafting capabilities were generally available. Today it would be quite easy to create an exploded view from AutoCAD assembly drawings, using the computer. I’m sure J&L paid a good price for the artwork in those early manuals.

As I have mentioned before, J&L had a great cafeteria, located halfway down Plant #1. It was always crowded at lunchtime. But they also had hand pushed “lunchcarts”, which appeared on the shop floor every day, mid-morning. I think there were two or three of these around various areas of the shop, and they sold coffee and other drinks, donuts and sandwiches. The rule was you were not to “chase the cart”, but wait for it to appear in your area. Because the Engineering Office was the last stop, a lot of the “good stuff” was gone by then. So it only made sense to somehow happen to be on the assembly floor when it appeared there. This was SOP (standard operating procedure) for many. Occasionally you might even see your boss at the cart at that time (“hey, boss, fancy meeting you here…………”).

The lunchcart that came up into engineering was piloted by a good-natured woman, who decided she had a crush on one of the older engineers. But Sam, the engineer, wanted nothing to do with her. He tried to be absent whenever she appeared, but sometimes he got caught. She would go into a high-pitched squeal of delight when she saw him, “Sammy, Sammy, Sammy”………….as Sam ran for his life…………

 

 

It was late winter 1971, and our work at Waterbury-Farrel was done. We returned to J&L and the jobs we held at the end of the strike. All three of us were still employed, which was in contrast to some of our friends who had been laid off. I returned to the grinder engineering group, and slowly got back up to speed. I still had my window seat, but because it was still winter out, the window stayed closed. We had a few customer orders, so I busied myself with the items that needed to be specified and ordered. But it was not a busy time, and the days seemed to drag on thru early spring.

The pace was definitely faster over in the lathe engineering area. The man who was responsible for documenting all the lathe tooling had been transferred to the sales area. Howard Haubrich was an outgoing and friendly guy who had the abilities needed to be a salesman, and he did a fine job. I was asked if I would like to be his replacement, and I accepted. The job entailed keeping track of all the tooling required for any lathe application. There was a multi-sheet master drawing that charted all the “square shank” turning tools, and also boring bars. The major suppliers of these items included companies such as Kennametal, GE-Coromant, Valenite, and Sandvik, among others. There were other lesser-known suppliers of specialty tools, also. My job was to keep all our records up-to-date so that the folks who handled the customer runoffs had the dimensional data necessary to do their jobs. All the TNC lathes were required to pass an accuracy check after the machine was built. We had what we called a “standard test piece” which the lathe was required to machine to a certain accuracy; this included straight cuts, contours, threading and boring.

Sometimes the standard test piece was all that was required to pass customer muster, and then the machine was skidded and shipped. But quite often the customer would have his own parts that had to be used for machine acceptance. Sometimes this could lead to tensions between “us and them”, especially when we discovered that the machining process of these parts had never been done by the customer. We were in effect providing this service for free. And this could take a significant amount of time (and money). Quite often the customer realized this, and we would negotiate some “additional charges” to help cover our costs. But it was often a hassle. A “pi**ing contest”. But we were usually at a disadvantage, as we wanted to ship product (and bill the customer).

As mentioned earlier, we had three or four major tool suppliers who were vying for our business. They had a very visible presence in the Halls Of Power (the front offices), and when lunch time came around, there were not many managers who had to pay for their own lunch. It is kind of like any government office, and these people were similar to lobbyists who were trying to advance their product. Of course, our customers quite often had a preference for which brand of tooling was used. In that case it was already decided.