Even though our “B” series TNC’s were the main offering, J&L also had larger versions of these lathes, with up to a 10″ thru-hole capacity spindle. These were “C” and “D” series machines, the “C” size comprised 4-1/2″ thru 8″ spindles, and the “D” size offered 6″ and 10″ spindles. These machines could mount very large chucks for those customers who needed them. The largest of the “D” size machines had a hydrostatic bearing spindle to be able to take the heavy chucks and high cutting forces generated during machining; instead of traditional ball or roller bearings, the R&D department had incorporated high pressure hydraulics and precise bearing areas, both in the radial and thrust direction. It did the job, providing very accurate machining capability for a lathe of that size. One of the critical requirements of a hydrostatic bearing is close oil temperature control, as the spindle is really floating on a film of high pressure oil with very small running clearances. Too wide an oil temperature range invites bearing seizure. We used a large commercial oil tank with an oil chiller (this unit was almost as big as the lathe). These large machines were usually bought by companies in Big Oil, machining threaded couplings and valves for use in the petroleum business. A lot of our customers were located in the southwest, in Texas and Oklahoma.

The “D” size machines were so large that the bed angle was steeper (by 10 degrees) than the other TNC’s. This was necessary to keep the machine narrow enough to be able to ship it on a commercial drop center flatbed trailer. The four-axis model had a three rail configuration for the slides.

Up until the fall of 1972 we had lived in a Harry Olney duplex on Prospect Street. We had been looking to buy our own house all summer, and had looked at a few in our price range. I was still in the Army Reserves and at summer camp that year, when the wife called me and said she had found a house in North Springfield on a dead end dirt road. We agreed to place a deposit on it so I could look at it when I got home. I believe we moved in at the end of September, and we have been here since then. The wife transported our five year old to the North Springfield school until we moved up from Springfield, a period of only a few weeks.

The basic house was a cape style, with an attached barn. There was also a separate two storey  gambrel roofed barn nearby. The owner was a retired J&L mechanic who was living out west. He had partitioned off the upstairs so he had two rental apartments. The yard was overgrown high grasses, with just a path mowed to the clothesline. Over the years we have converted the house back to a single family home. Even though the house is 200 years old, it had never gone thru the early “knob and tube” style of wiring. It had apparently gone from kerosene lanterns right into armored cable (with questionable integrity). The house had a 60 amp service and no insulation whatever. It was originally a center chimney affair, but that had been removed long ago (but I found out during our remodel that some of the main beams were charred from that!!). We had our work cut out for us, but it was what we could afford at the time (house payment $153 a month). Doing most of the work ourselves, nights and weekends, we now have a pretty decent home. But I wouldn’t want to do it again……………