The machine tool marketplace was changing. Up to this point J&L had carved a niche by catering to our customer; most any special requirement was quoted, and we usually got the job. But doing this results in delayed delivery times. Our foreign competition had been busy; some had already built factories in this country, others had plans. And they had built and warehoused machinery to allow them to deliver their product quickly. Ultimately, our customers were forced to accept these machines, even though they did not meet their “specs”. Delivery time was the deciding factor. Their specs took a back seat.

Our bosses at Waterbury-Farrel were busy with expansion plans for us at this time; perhaps this was camouflage for what was really happening in the back rooms. Our business continued to decline, and rumors started appearing; there was talk about moving the grinder product line south; maybe even consolidating all of our resources in one place? The comparator product had already left town. Any Plant #2 personnel still with us had been relocated to Plant #1. Our new president (up from Texas) departed. Who filled these shoes after that I cannot remember (but I believe it was someone from Waterbury). There were numerous layoffs, both in the shop and office. But not just at J&L, all the shops in town saw a decline.

One of the Waterbury-Farrel executives inadvertently left a copy of a secret memo in a coping machine at J&L. It was the spring of 1983. The memo was discovered by one of our secretaries, and before long everyone in the plant knew about it. It briefly outlined a possible move of all of the J&L product to Connecticut. Of course this caused an outrage; a complete surprise. Our parent company tried to smooth over this discovery, even going so far as to have a general meeting with everyone on the shop floor. The main speaker was none other than the president of Waterbury-Farrel, Hanspeter Schwartz. He insisted there was no plan to move J&L south, despite the discovery of the memo.

In September of 1983 there was an official announcement that indeed we would be moved south and consolidated with our parent company in Cheshire, Connecticut.

A move of this magnitude has to be carefully planned; for the company to survive there had to be a core group of key employees willing to relocate. Having people with product knowledge is essential for continuity. There would of course be new people to train, but who could do that training but us? So there was a large effort made by Waterbury-Farrel to win over as many of us to The Cause as possible. There were several charter bus trips to Connecticut to help us meet our “cousins” there; the beer and wine flowed; good cheer all around. Camaradrie; this effort was long-running, going well into 1984. Interviews were held with each employee to see who might be willing to move.

The decision had been made to move the comparator division to York, South Carolina. Textron had an empty Talon Zipper plant that they wanted to use, and the accountants claimed much cost savings from moving south. Many of the comparator workers refused to move; some people in Plant #1 expressed an interest in joining the exodus. Compromises were made to accommodate these people (at least one person was nearing retirement age, and figured, why not let the company move me at their expense?). Of course, the “cost savings” to the company never materialized (it seldom does). The lack of skilled craftsmen hobbled the product right from the start. What was once a shining example of Yankee Ingenuity became another financial leak in the Mother Ship.

In the meantime, we continued on in Plant #1, trying to absorb all the changes taking place. The new MRP (Material Readiness Plan) system required quite a lot of training for us. I was among several people sent to Atlanta for a week of this training. Many others who were closer to the “action” needed multiple week training sessions. This system was suppose to allow us to get a better handle on the procurement process; how to track the progress of various ordered parts more efficiently. Most of the actual work was done by the people in the Shop Office.

Our machines were built using what was called a “Machine Writeup”, listing all the assemblies required to achieve a complete machine. Our numbering system consisted of “assembly lists”, each of which was a complete sub-assembly in itself. For instance, A-12345 might be a machine base, A-21683 could be a slide assembly; each and every TNC model had a “Family Tree” which listed all the sub-assemblies required to build a complete “standard” machine. All the Tech Writer had to do was to  access the “Family Tree” for a particular model, print out the machine order, and issue it to the Shop Office. Then the order was plugged into the system to start the build. The new MRP system would schedule each sub-assembly so that the necessary parts would be done at the appropriate time based on final machine build dates, and taking into account the “lead times” to make every single part. Not a big deal if you are building one machine at a time, but if twenty are on the books, it becomes quite a project.

Of course a lot of the J&L TNC’s had “special” requirements based on customer standards or requests. These special items required additional engineering and were at an added cost to the customer (sometimes quite large additional costs were involved). These “special” assembly lists would be issued by engineering after completion of the design work.

Our overseas competition took another approach to this, offering just a “standard” machine, with little or no deviation offered or available. But at less cost, and quicker delivery. The machinery itself may have been less robust in design, but a new philosophy was emerging in machine tools; less costly, quick delivery, disposable machines began to take over the marketplace.

As the decade ended, we continued to have plenty of work. But that’s the way it is in the machine tool business. The usual sequence of our employment is out of sync with the national trends (I.E. we were busy working on our order backlog when the general economy is down, and when the economy picks up, we are in a decline due to lack of orders). And that is the way it was in 1979; there was a recession going on, which would last into the early 80’s. Inflation was into the double digits, and unemployment nationally was worse than during the Great Depression.

The large machine order from New Departure had really tied up our resources, both in engineering and manufacuring. Our quoted delivery times for “standard” machines had lengthened, sometimes to 12 months or more. As a result, many of our potential customers were forced to buy their machinery from other sources. And the Japanese were poised to take advantage. Once you lose a customer to another brand, it is very hard to reverse the situation. The J&L design philosophy had always been to create a very robust machine, with a long service life, and support it with a dedicated service department. In effect, these machines could remain productive for decades. But as the electronic controls became more and more sophisticated, it wasn’t the mechanical design of the machine that was the weak point, it was the electronics. There were several NC control manufacturers vying for market share at this time. Allen Bradley, General Automation, GE-Fanuc, and others. The evolution of the controls drove the marketplace; and as we all know, the rate of change accelerates with time, especially in the electronics field. Early NC units required battery backup to retain programming information; as time went on, the battery requirement disappeared. Todays hand held electronic calculators are a good example of just how tiny the package has become. Also, as time went on, the servo drives and their feedback devices (which control the machine tool slides) have become phenomenally accurate.

As the 80’s dawned, we inherited a new Operations manager from Bell Helicopter / Textron. He came out of Texas with his Lincoln and cowboy hat, and never really connected with our people. We launched a new MRP system that would theoretically help us get a hand on future parts ordering. Based on previous ordering history, we launched into  procuring long-lead parts based on future forecasts. But due to the recession, these orders never materialized. We ended up spending a huge amount of money on parts we couldn’t use. Being in engineering, I remember being asked to use any in-stock items if possible on future designs.

The recession hit all the shops hard. There were 1200 people working at J&L at the end of the decade; but the decline had begun. Our success with New Departure caused a loss of customers, our internal problems began to accumulate, and in just a short time, a monumental decision by our parent company would signal the end.

One of our biggest problems in the late 70’s had been finding qualified help to meet demand. We had two full shifts going, and our parking facilities were stretched to the limit. Because we were running two shifts in the production and assembly areas, there was a perceived need to be able to react quickly to any emergency, whatever it may be. There were many entry points (doors) on the buildings (especially plant #1). If an emergency occurred, how would the police or fire department know which one to use? Where to enter the building? To solve this problem J&L numbered all the entrances into the building, and educated the workforce on how to contact the local authorities in an emergency, using these numbers. Also, most everyone was required to take a basic first aid / CPR course, which was taught over at the Tech Center by qualified instructors. I still have my booklets from these classes.

Because all the shops in the valley were busy, so were the local businesses who supported them. At the time, if you wanted to go to lunch during the workweek, you better have a reservation. The more upscale places included The Hartness House and The Paddock (now closed). The Hartness House at that time was the prime location for lunches, especially if a vendor took you there (and paid for it!!). Another popular location was Penelopes (now closed). Downstairs was McKinleys, a more informal place with a bar and tables. These two businesses were actually one, and were connected by a stairway internally (McKinleys is where Sheries is now). The Gaslight was a bar and restaurant in the plaza, now an insurance agency (by the footbridge). In its later incarnation it became Alabis, before closing. Always popular because of its location next to the bowling alley. We shouldn’t forget The Duck Inn, which was located where The Oriental Palace is now. It was a little less formal dining / drinking/ dancing place, and a locals favorite. Down near I91 was Howard Johnsons restaurant and motel. They had an attached bar called The Black Bear, where serious drinking and dancing took place. And of course there were many outlying businesses that are now closed (The Hind Quarter in Chester, and The Chopping Block in Proctorsville as examples).

As an aside, the location where Sheris is now (and was McKinleys) was a Grayhound bus terminal when I came to town in 1965. It was just a small area down in the cellar, not nearly as large as it is now. Steve Green and his crew excavated many yards of dirt to create a restaurant which would become McKinleys. And the handcrafted pine woodwork was quite a sight when it opened in 1975.

Nobody who lived thru these times would forget Al Pinders, and his clothing store, Furmans. Al was the go-to guy for anything that the office workers needed in the clothing line (with free alterations). I would guess there are hundreds of suitcoats and thousands of ties hanging in closets locally. I know I have a few.

In the early 80’s we had a significant member of our engineering team retire. Harold Noyes had been with the company for many years, working his way up thru the ranks like we all did. His position when he retired was as the Engineering Lead Man for the TNC lathe product line. I had been a member of this department for quite a long time, and had advanced to the position of Senior Design Engineer, so I was asked if I would like the Lead Man position. Because I was familiar with our people, and product line, and had worked closely with the other department heads, I accepted.

The Engineering Lead Man position was basically as an assistant to the TNC lathe engineering manager. At the time this was Dave Keniston, who had held this position for several years, being promoted in from the programming department. Dave had been my boss right along, so this was nothing new. Basically, my job would entail reviewing all projects that were entered into the TNC lathe department, and sitting down with Dave to go thru time estimates for each. Then we would prioritize these jobs, and pick who we thought would be able to tackle the actual design work. Dave had a wall mounted chart in his office that we used to list all our available people and their workload. We had perhaps eight or ten engineers on staff at this time, each one having certain talents that might fit the task at hand. Sometimes these folks were busy working on other projects, and it might be a few weeks before they could “take hold” of a new assignment. In that case, I might do some preliminary groundwork to give them a “head start” when they finally were available. I might even be able to pick off little pieces of these jobs, do the layout and design work, and release them to manufacturing. This was especially important if there were any long-lead items that had to be ordered (“long lead” meaning things that take a long time to obtain).

When I refer to “releasing items for manufacture”, I should describe just how we did this at J&L. Our machinery was built using a multi-page “machine writeup”, which listed all the sub-assemblies needed to create a full blown machine. These basic sub-assembly lists were written, as an example, starting with the machine base (or bed) as “A-12345 Machine Base”, and this list would include all the parts necessary to build a base. Following this on the machine writeup would be all the other sub-assemblies, both mechanical and electrical, until the build list was complete. There were many “standard” sub-assemblies already in existence, enough to build any “standard” TNC lathe; no engineering involvement was necessary. But the orders that did find their way to my desk involved some special element; it may just be a customer specification for a different limit switch brand. So we may have to do some design work to fit these in, and write and issue a new sub-assembly list to get them on order. But most of our work involved much more complicated items then that.

The  bottom line in any business is profit. That’s just the way it is in our capitalist system. Money has always been a good incentive to excel, and always will be. The J&L sales department could arguably be called the Most Important part of the company. Without sales, what is there? But selling a product took much organization, and many people.

The salespeople who had direct contact with our customers were called “Outside Sales”, as they were located in major cities around the country, and overseas as well. Some of these people were on the company payroll as employees, but many worked for independent machine tool distributors. Their pay was based on a commission percentage of sales. A machine tool distributor essentially sold a variety of machinery, with the J&L product line only one part of their lineup. It’s basically similar to the local new car dealership: the dealership is not an employee of the car company, but works under contract, being paid a commission from them based on sales performance.

The “Inside Sales” people were the ones located at the factory; they were basically the contact between outside sales and the sales engineers who prepared the quotes. They did quite a bit of travelling to customer locations, and the longer a person held this job, the more “customer contacts” they usually had. They also entertained the customer when visiting J&L.

When a request comes in from a customer, it is routed to the “Sales Engineer” for review; if the requested machine is straightforward (I.E. no special requirements), it can be quoted after reviewing the machine build backlog and determining delivery time. But this type of quote was rare; most customer requests involved some sort of difficulty. There may be a customer spec that had to be adhered to. These could be very complex, requiring collaboration with the product engineering department (both electrical and mechanical). Time and material costs had to be calculated. There would likely be an “extra charge” for the customer. Many of our customers were automotive type businesses (Ford, John Deere, and Caterpillar as examples). Many of these companies had several plants located around the country; and sometimes each plant had its own standard. J&L strived to comply to these requests, sometimes at no additional cost, to get the order.

Quite often the “Customer Specs” were composed of hundreds of pages, and a thorough review was impossible; J&L might take exception to certain parts, but we always had to defend our position. Sometimes it was best just to “No Quote” because the complexity was just too great. Of course, it all depended on how big our machine backlog was; were we “hungry” for work? Sometimes that hunger got us in trouble………..

While the TNC product line was being quoted and built, J&L was working on a new improved model; even as the original TNC was selling well, there were many areas that could be improved. The original TNC lathe lineup consisted of three basic sizes: the original “B” size, a somewhat larger “C” size, and a “D” size for the big boys. The new product line would be called the “Delta” TNC’s. “Delta” is a Greek letter signifying change. So the new products would be known as the “Delta line”.

One of the limitations of the original TNC line was the time it took to index the turrets (and tools). Each index consisted of unclamping the turret, indexing one tool station, and reclamping. If the program called for using a tool in station #1, and then skipping to station #3, you still had to unclamp and reclamp station #2 to get there. Because of the inherent design, index could only move one station at a time (the index itself was by hydraulic cylinder and rack and pinion gearing). The new Delta designed turrets used an electronic servomotor connected to a worm and wheel to enable multi-station indexing without having to clamp at each face. This was possible in part because of advances in electronic servomotors and their feedback devices. This was a huge improvement for the customer, helping him to cut machining time (and per piece cost) down.

The Delta series improvements included the servomotor index setup mentioned above, along with better guarding to meet the current OSHA regulations. The headstock drive was improved to include infinitely variable spindle speeds which translated into more optimum cutting tool metal removal rates (this was referred to as “constant surface footage”). The older TNC’s had just a few specific spindle speeds, and you could hear when the RPM’s jumped from one to another. The new setup provided seamless speed increases. The basic spindle sizes remained the same. The “C” size TNC was redesigned with the petroleum industry in mind (what we referred to as the “Oil Patch”). Everything was made larger, and we had the steepen the slide angle to keep the overall machine width narrow enough to fit on existing flatbed trailers.

Unfortunately, these Delta “C” machines were brought to market just as the country was entering a recession. Unemployment and inflation sent the economy reeling. After much development time and money, J&L sold very few of these machines. I believe the first two were sold to Cameron Iron Works, a petroleum based Texas outfit that made large threaded oil pipe couplings and such. At this point in time there was also a banking crisis, especially in Texas. Many banks were failing, and their involvement in the real estate market just compounded it. Oil workers were losing their jobs (and homes) and leaving the Southwest.

It is amazing to think about all the groundbreaking devices that were invented in this area over the years. Starting with Robbins and Lawrence in Windsor, in the mid 1800’s, with what came to be known as the “American System”. Looking at it now, it was quite a simple idea: make each part of a machine interchangeable, so that assembly of that machine could be quick and economical. But in the beginning the basic problem was to be able to make parts to close tolerances. The early machining processes did not lend themselves well to this, as the machinery was quite crude. With the building of better, more accurate, machinery, the idea became fact. It started in Windsor, with the manufacture of rifles for the Civil War. When I talk here of “machines”, I mean anything from guns to lathes to automobiles. Once the parts were made “identical”, mass production could be achieved. Much quicker and cheaper, than hand building each gun, lathe, or whatever.

James Hartness had developed a line of threading dies in the early 1900’s, but recognized that the inspection procedures of the time were crude and time consuming. At the time he was the chairman of the National Screw Thread Committee, and his interest in optics (he was an amateur astronomer), gave him an idea. With the help of Russell Porter, a Springfield native who was also familiar with astronomy, they developed the optical comparator around 1920. Using a set of magnifying lenses, and projecting a high powered light beam over the threads, and matching the profile onto a drawn chart, it was possible to measure, within very close tolerances, any feature of the thread, pitch, lead, root radius, etc. The lenses themselves were magnifying type, I.E. they magnified the profile so it was easier to measure on the charts. The optical comparator became a good fit with the other machinery that J&L sold.

The heart of the comparator is the lens system. There were no commercially available lenses that could be bought at the time, so J&L set about to make their own. They set up a lens grinding room and proceeded to grind their own lenses and mirrors to very precise and polished tolerances. The company offered lenses in several magnifications, depending on the job at hand. The basic comparator had a 14″ diameter screen, but sizes up to 30″ were available for larger workpiece inspection.

Because of the success of the TNC lathe product line, and the expected expansion of models, J&L had a serious lack-of-room situation. So a management decision was made to move the comparator product line out of Springfield. Textron had an empty factory building in South Carolina that had been used by Talon Zipper. This happened around 1980 or so. Anyone who was a part of the product line, engineering, sales or assembly, was offered a job in the new facility. Some decided to stay in Springfield, and some in Plant #1 wanted to move south. So there was some “swapping around” to accommodate these people.

The engineering office was really just one big room, well lit from the sawtooth roof design. There were large reciprocating fans mounted high on the vertical I-beams, which kept the air moving during the summer months. But there was no air conditioning. One of the engineers had been recording summer temperatures using a pencil, on one of the I-beams. I remember that it was common to see those numbers in the high 90’s, and even a few into the 100’s (I bet those numbers are still there, if you knew where to look). Quite oppressive to those of us wearing dress shirts and ties.

Our furniture consisted of old oak office drafting tables and a variety of drafting machines. Most of those were the older type with weighted arms which swung out over the tops of the drafting boards. The angular drafting surface itself could be adjusted manually, with a rod and lock knob on each corner. Usually the draftsman would find a suitable incline and leave it there for all his work, as it was quite a chore to change it. Each “work station” consisted of this drafting table, and a large, flat, reference desk. The draftsman sat between these, moving back and forth from the reference table (where the job assignment layouts and paperwork were laid flat), and the drafting surface, where he may be doing layout work or detailing a part. I might mention that these “work cubicles” were placed in-line, front to back, and the engineer had to keep an eye on the next persons drafting machines counterweight, else he get whacked by it!

The company knew that the office, especially during the hot summer months, needed air conditioning. At the same time, they decided to replace the obsolete drafting equipment (I believe this happened in the late 70’s-early 80’s). It was quite an expensive undertaking, as there were perhaps forty or so engineers. Each department got new drafting tables and state of the art (for then) Vemco drafting machines (no more counterweights!). These tables were of two different lengths, 6 foot, or 8 foot. The eight foot size went to those who did most of the design layout work, the six footers went to detailers, mostly. Both sizes had motorized vertical adjustments, and manual angle (one handed) clamps. Each department was segregated with five foot walls which allowed for air movement. All of this work had to take place without causing undue delays in our engineering tasks; so most of it was done at night over a several month period.

There were three distinct engineering departments at this time, two mechanical (Grinder and Lathe Products), and one electrical. The Electrical Engineering department covered both product lines. They also had the task of doing design work on PCB’s (printed circuit boards). We did a lot of our own PCB work, and used a “light table” to lay out the actual conductive tracks that connected the various electronic items on those boards.

 

I was fortunate to be involved with several groundbreaking robotics applications at J&L in the late 70’s. I believe the first one was with a company named Thiokol, in Louisiana. They bought two TNC’s and a robot made by AMF-Versatran. The workpiece was an aluminum artillery part called an “ogive”. Basically the nosepiece of an artillery shell. The Versatran unit was basically a point-to-point mechanism, which was capable of picking up a “rough” (unfinished) workpiece from a loading table, pivoting, and then entering the lathe to load same workpiece in the lathe chuck. It worked pretty well once it was programmed. All the motions were straight-line, unlike later robots that could move tangentially. The lathe would machine the tapered OD and do some threading. This was the only AMF robot that we ever sold; it’s possible that it was specified by the customer, but I don’t remember.

The name Fanuc is now widely recognized in the machine tool world; in the beginning they forged a partnership with General Electric, probably to gain market accessibility in the U.S.. Fanuc N.C. controls are now the most widely used ones in the world. But they also became involved with robotics in the 70’s. We sold a few TNC lathes with small, machine mounted Fanuc robots (the AMF unit was floor mounted). I can remember  job for Detroit Diesel, where the robots job was to load a large, hollow, cylindrical forging in the lathe chuck, machine one end, and then unload, placing the workpiece on an open-bottomed, flat table, machined side up. The robot would then ungrip and retract, then come up from below the table, regrip, and reload in the lathe (basically turning the workpiece 180 degrees). The lathe would then machine the unfinished end.

By far the most complicated robotic job we ever did was for International-Harvester. They had developed a hot forging process for differential bevel gears for their small tractors. Their plan was to be able to hot forge the bevel gear teeth accurately enough so that no further gear cutting or shaving would be necessary. But the gears had quite a bit of “flash” on the edges. which hindered their being loaded robotically into our lathe (flash is excess metal squeezed out during the forging process). After several months of quoting and preliminary design work, we ended up with four separate pieces of equipment to do the job: 1) a loading table, where the workpieces came into the nest in known positions. 2) a deburr machine which was suppose to remove the flash (it never did work properly). 3) the TNC lathe which did the actual machining work on the gears (turning and boring). 4) the robot, centrally located, floor mounted, to service (and reach) the first three above. The finished gears were to be placed back on the loading table. I should mention that the original purchase order from I-H was for two complete “nests”, on nest having two TNC’s, and one nest having three. A  total of (5) TNC’s, (2) robots, (2) loading tables, and (2) deburr units.

The project was a very long running one, well over a year in development (during the Christmas season, the electrical techs on the job programmed one robot to mix drinks!).

We didn’t realize it at the time, but I-H was having financial problems, and they declared bankruptcy. They found any excuse to refuse delivery, and J&L ended up selling off the TNC’s to other customers. The deburr units and loading tables were scrapped. A very costly project for J&L.