Once the sector machine redesign was done, I was assigned to work with the tooling group. These people were responsible for all the work holding equipment that was necessary to hold the customer parts while the actual gear cutting took place. This might include chucks, cutter adapters, and anything else in the work area. Heading up this (small) group was an engineer nearing retirement age. We always referred to him as “Mr. Two -Tenths”, as his runout spec for many of the work holding parts was .0002″. In a way he was right, as any excess runout in these items may be cause for failing a customer runoff. The closer we could manufacture these parts, the greater chances of success. But .0002″ in some cases was overkill. The manufacturing people did the best they could under these circumstances. I really was not comfortable working with the tooling group, I wanted to get back into the basic machine design areas. But most of what Fellows was selling was existing designs; there was no money to spend on a lot of new ideas.

At the time I was hired in 1988, Fellows was investigating a computer-aided drafting system (CAD) for engineering. Most of us were still working on paper at the time, and I don’t believe the CAD system was implemented by the time I left two years later. As with most of the old-line industries, the Fellows drawings included the really old pen-and-ink linen variety using fractions, the somewhat later pencil drawings, and then the present drawings of current products. There was a push in this country back in the 70’s to convert U.S. industry to a metric measuring system; most companies resisted this. But to Fellow’s credit, they attempted to “go metric”, although with mixed results. Their drawings were a hodgepodge of styles that must have drove the machinists and inspectors crazy. And caused a lot of excess expense, too. They had “soft metric” drawings, “hard metric” drawings, some with first angle projection (the U.S. standard), some with third angle projection (the European standard). Because everyone at that time was used to reading (and measuring) in inches, working in millimeters was quite a handicap. I know I was never really comfortable thinking in metric. Today the U.S. manufacturing  industry has largely converted; I think all of the domestic automotive products use metric fasteners.

An explanation: a “soft metric” drawing was one that took existing inch dimension drawings and converted those numbers to millimeters (I.E. 1.000″ becomes 25.394 millimeters). A “hard metric” drawing dimensioned the part in millimeters right from the start (the mechanisms are designed using  metric measuring vs. inch). To aid the machinist in the shop, most hard metric drawings had a chart in an upper corner converting all the millimeter dimensions to inch, as most machinists still used inch measuring devices, such as micrometers. So these drawings, although thorough, were quite complex.

There were several former J&L people working at Fellows Gear Shaper, so I felt somewhat at home. Fellows was the second largest employer in town, now the largest due to the problems at J&L. At the time I was hired, they had been acquired by The Goldman Group, an investment firm. The on-site management team included a Mr. Joe Smith, a sour man who had some sort of disability, and got around in an electric cart. His wife ran the mailroom. There were some Goldmans there from time-to-time, but I never interacted with them. I was a new hire, an engineer from J&L, and I basically had to start from scratch learning a new set of rules and regulations. Each company has these, developed over the years to suit their particular industry and personality; Fellows was no different. So quite a lot of what I had been taught at J&L had to be suppressed, to make room for The Fellows Way.

Being within walking distance from my home was really great; unless the weather was bad, I walked every day. Fellows had a modern cafeteria at the plant in North Springfield, and they put on a great lunch. Engineering was located on the second floor, along with the sales department. Over the years Fellows was a leader in gear cutting technology; they not only sold gear cutting machines, they also had their own gear cutter department. Their cutters were considered the Cadillac of the industry, and a big part of their income. Every new engineer was required to attend a one week seminar that explained all of the components of a gear tooth; involute, pitch line, base circle radius, etc.. I still have the two workbook handouts from that class.

One of my first assignments after hire was to complete a design concept that had been started by a former engineer who had left the company. One of the products offered by Fellows was a gear shaper to cut coarse, variable pitch teeth on a steering sector shaft. These parts were used on recirculating ball steering boxes, found today mostly on trucks and large vans. These gear teeth were cut on an angle off the centerline of the shaft itself. In the past, a sector gear shaping machine would be built with the upright (the part of the machine that held the cutter), at the proper angle to cut these teeth. So that machine would be “dedicated” to being able to cut only parts with that one particular angle. If a company had several different sectors to cut (with several different angles), multiple machines would be required. This new design would allow for the upright angle to be adjustable. Because the cutting action of a gear shaper is basically all interrupted cuts, the adjustment and locking mechanism had to be able to hold up to the constant vibrations that occur. This feature was greeted with much customer enthusiasm, as one machine could now cut sector gears of multiple angles, using what were called “sine blocks” inserted and clamped for each angle required. I believe the first two machines of this design were sold to a Korean company.

Because most of todays cars have rack-and-pinion steering systems, these sector shapers are not as popular as they once were.

 

Our new company included some veteran J&L comparator people; Steve Bromley and Frank Jarvis were the travelling sales people, and Richard Searle signed on as inside sales engineer. Dick had many years of experience with the J&L comparator product line. Bill McGrotty was the chief engineer, and I assisted when needed. But it soon became apparent that my main duties would be on the assembly floor. Plus, I inherited the casting of the bases; setting up the forms, bending the rebar, mixing and pouring the concrete.

The heart of the machine was the slide assembly; a two axis affair that included some innovative “space age” bearing material. Instead of machining precisely aligned parts, the vertical ram bearing was poured from an epoxy resin called Moglice. It was a low friction bearing material that would conform to the OD of the precision ground ram, and hopefully give us a close running, no-shake fit. Lubrication was from a low tech oil cup. We soon found out that this material was difficult to predict; sometimes it would turn out beautifully, other times the fit was so loose that the oil just ran out of the bottom. It appeared that the results depended on the atmospheric conditions at the time of the pour; I.E. humid or dry? Hot or cold? In the end we never really could count on a 100% success rate. It was just the nature of the beast. So chipping out Moglice and repouring was sometimes necessary.

Because the base of the machine was concrete, the comparator was quite stable. There was a cavity inside the base that contained the electronics. We offered two size screens, just like the competition, 14″ and 30″, although the 14″ was the biggest seller. I learned quite a lot about setting up the optics from Dick Searle, but never really got excited about this machine. Compared to a machine tool like a lathe, it was a pretty static product.

About nine months into the job Bob Jones announced that our wages would be increased by $1.00 per hour, and we would start receiving stock certificates in the company on a quarterly basis. I decided that this job would be only temporary, so I hung in there for about two years until something came along that would get me back in the action.

I got a call from a former J&L engineer who was working at Fellows Corp. in North Springfield. He said they had gotten a big order for gear shapers from Caterpillar Tractor and they needed engineering help. So I went in for an interview, and got hired. It was just up my alley. Even though I knew little about a gear shaper, machinery in general is all pretty similar. And living within walking distance of the plant was a bonus.