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.

Our second child, a girl, was born shortly before I was sent to Connecticut to work. The wife had a difficult time of it with me gone all week, and we both cherished our weekends together. But life goes on, and we adapted. At the time we were living in a duplex on Prospect Street, owned by Harry Olney. Harry had a policy with his tenants concerning property improvements. Anything we wanted to do he usually agreed with; he would pay for the supplies and we would donate the labor. This is where I got experience in wallpapering and painting. We fixed the place up pretty well in the four years we were there. I remember there was a large Catalpa tree in the yard, and in the spring it would be fully bloomed (and carpeting the ground with flower petals as the spring progressed).

In the meantime, we three draftsmen continued to toil “downcountry”. Living out of a motel is pretty boring, and we spent a lot of our free time window shopping. Sometimes we would buy a gift for our wives, or toys for the kids back home. But money was always tight, after all, we were just starting down the Road Of Life. As I mentioned before, we each had $60 to go us the week, and food was the biggest expense. If we skrimped on eating, we could bring more money home. And each of us approached this goal differently. I remember on more than one occasion having to pay the Charlestown toll bridge fee out of my own pocket because one of the guys (who lived in New Hampshire) didn’t want to break one of the two twenties he had saved to bring home………..

As was my habit wherever I worked, I would take occasional breaks and walk thru the manufacturing and assembly areas. There is a lot to learn by observation, and meeting the people “on the other side of the fence”. I may have been involved on the creative side of machinery, but having an understanding of the manufacturing side is equally important. Working on the assembly floor during the just recent strike at J&L just reinforced those beliefs. But I had to be careful not to get lost at the Waterbury-Farrel plant. The few months that I spent there didn’t really allow me to get comfortable with the full layout. It kind of reminded me of a long ago tour as a VTC student going into the old Fellows plant in Springfield. Machine tool  manufacturing is a dirty business, most of the components are gray iron castings, dust is in the air, the floors are grimy. The lighting is quite often inadequate (due to the dust settling). It is also very noisy, and, if you are new to it, it is easy to be intimidated, with people coming and going, the forklift trucks with their horns blaring. If the factory includes a heat-treatment department (which most do), that has its own sights, smells, and dangers.

After working at J&L for five years, and learning their procedures and practices, it was quite a shock to learn that I knew nothing. But that was basically what happened when I was sent to work for our parent company, Waterbury-Farrel, after the strike was over. Their standards and processes where completely different than J&L. But this was not a unique situation, as I learned later in my career. Every company evolves on its own, with its own way of doing things, the manufacturing methods, the engineering standards. Its not a matter of who is right and who is wrong, although I did think along those lines as a young engineer. It wasn’t until fairly recently (in the last fifty years or so) that some “National” standards for manufacturing have appeared (I.E. in the early years of the automobile, there were no standards for screw threads, and each car manufacturer had their own ideas concerning the nuts and bolts that held the car together. It was not uncommon to see oddball threads such as 1/4-14 or 9/16-28, but as the fastener industry grew, these variations evolved into what we see today).

Living out of a motel in Waterbury, Connecticut, thru the winter of 1970-71, was a unique experience. If I remember right, the winter weather consisted of either wet snow or freezing rain (kind of like what we are getting in Vermont now). The town of Cheshire contracted out a lot of their snowplowing, and it was not uncommon to see garbage trucks with plows. We stayed at a place called The Red Bull, on top of a hill not too far from I84. We spent four nights a week there, travelling back and forth from Vermont on Mondays and Fridays. The product line at Waterbury-Farrel was completely different than what any of us was used to; they designed and built hot and cold forming machinery, basically stamping machines of various sizes. Forging machinery. From small units that may stamp out electrical contacts in silver, to multi-ton capacity machines for large forgings. At the time they were building some multi-station machines that took a chunk of brass and progressively stamped it out into a bullet casing. A lathe-like device at the end would machine an ejection groove to complete the item.

The engineering department at Waterbury-Farrel was set up similar to J&L in that they had rows of drafting tables in a large room. This was before computer aided drafting (CAD) was in existence. Design work was done with pencil and eraser, on large sheets of vellum (a high grade of paper used for drafting work). They had dedicated crew of checkers, and we found out soon enough that our way of drawing would have to change to conform to their “standards”. Our job was basically one of “detailers”, to take their assembly layouts and draw up every single part so that it could be manufactured. But our methods and dimensioning approach had to bend to conform to their standards. It was, in some ways, a painful four months.

 

One of the uncomfortable aspects of the 1970 strike was having to cross the picket lines every day. The union had placed some of their workers at the parking lot entrances, and the local police had a presence there to keep things orderly. For the most part there was no violence, like you might see in the big cities. The pickets were people we all knew, some were close friends. Of course, as the strike dragged on, tensions did increase. Especially when the trucks came to ship the machines we non-union workers had built. There were harassment type chases involving some of the union people, as the trucks left the factory.  I do remember a story about shots being fired down on I91. But as far as I know, nobody came to any real bodily harm

Because the strike dragged on much longer than anyone thought it would, a lot of the out-of-work union people found jobs elsewhere. So the manning of the picket lines was done by a few faithful. They had placed a 55 gallon drum at the Plant #1 office parking lot entrance, and kept a fire going in it for the chilly mornings. Machine orders were dropping off as word of the strike got out. The contract negotiations were stalled thru the summer. It was not until late fall when an agreement was reached, and the union signed a new pact. I don’t remember the exact details, but I believe the long strike did not benefit the union workers at all. And it took the company a long time to recover. The office workers who stuck thru it all were faced with layoffs; many union workers were not called back for some time; the summer of 1970 did not reward any of us who were involved with this event.

My second child was born toward the end of the strike, and my wife had to come pick me up one November Saturday to go to the hospital. I remember it was during football season, and I watched a game while she was in the delivery room. Back then fathers were not allowed to participate as they are now.

As mentioned earlier, some of the office personnel who worked thru the strike lost their jobs when the strike ended. It was inevitable, as there was not that much engineering work to do. But our parent company, Waterbury-Farrel, was developing a new hot former, and needed engineering help. So three of us were sent to work in their plant in Cheshire, Connecticut. This lasted thru the winter of 1970-1971, for about four months. We would leave town (in a company car) on Monday morning, and return on Friday afternoon. We were put up in a motel and given $60 each to cover expenses. We did not have to make out an expense report, so if we wanted to eat cheap, we could pocket the rest. But living on $60 was not difficult, most of the time we would come home with extra money. And we ate well, I remember in particular a small chef-owned steak house where the service was first-rate (I think the name was The Sleeping Giant). We would usually eat one really good dinner a week, and spend the rest of the week on pizza or pasta. Our co-workers at Waterbury-Farrel gave us inside information on where to eat.

In the spring of 1970 we were living in a duplex on Prospect Street. The wife and I and our daughter, then 2 years old. The folks who lived on the “other side” were an English couple who had just moved into town. He was a salesman who had been hired by Fellows Gear Shaper. She was a stay-at-home mom who prepared curry spiced dishes at least once a week (they had just spent several years living in India). Living in a duplex is a little like staying in a motel, some events are shared thru the walls, odors being one of them. We have never been curry spice fans. But we remain best friends to this day, even though they moved away long ago.

The storm that was brewing that spring involved the renewal of the labor contract that the UE had with Jones and Lamson. Negotiations were ongoing and fruitless; business was slow, so the union was at a disadvantage. But the final vote on the contract ended in a strike. This was in June, and I remember the workers rolling out their toolboxes on a sunny day, and stating they were “going fishing”. The office staff (and shop supervisors) were non-union, so we all continued working. But within a few days, Bob Jones (the president at the time) called a meeting of all office staff to explain what the company policy would be during the strike. Anyone who still had engineering work to do would be able to finish it. Then we would be reassigned to various positions in the shop so that machines could still be built and shipped. In effect, we would become the shop work force. Very little engineering work would be done during the strike. I’m not sure if new orders were taken during this time, but they probably were. Nobody knew it at the time, but this strike would last six months.

I was working in Grinder Engineering when the strike started, and I was sent out to “get my hands dirty” on the grinder assembly floor. I think the experience of seeing both sides of the process (engineering, and then build), really helped me grasp the whole picture. I was now the recipient of an engineering design that I created, and hate to admit that perhaps it could (sometimes) stand improvement. But that’s part of the “learning curve” we all hope to climb over. Some never do.

For the most part, the office workers were able to slide into the role of machine assemblers, painters, electrical wiremen. It took some time to accomplish, but with the help of the shop supervisors, who were familiar with the process, things fell into place. Because of inexperience, most of us had to work overtime to complete these tasks. Working Saturdays became part of the normal work week. Because of the circumstances, we became a close-knit group, helping each other out where we could. There was no pressure from management, just an understanding that we would do what we could, when we could. There were regular meetings held so we knew how the union negotiations were going. This would continue thru the summer and fall.

The grinder assembly floor was just beyond the front wall of engineering, so it was easy to stroll out several times a day to see what was going on. The foreman of the group was Ivan Spencer, well-liked by most everyone. Ivan certainly helped me get acclimated when I joined the engineering group. There were perhaps eight assembly personnel under Ivan, who built the machines and ran them off. As mentioned earlier, there were numerous models being quoted and sold, but the bulk of the business was with the E2 and E3 form grinders. Electrically, these were relay equipped and in most instances had a small hydraulic tank used for work holding, and perhaps automation. Most of these machines required separate coolant tanks to provide necessary coolant over the grinding wheel. The coolant could be water based or grinding oil, depending on the job.

One of the stories told to me involved the electrical wiring foreman on the grinder assembly floor. Because some of the grinders had no coolant reservoir, we had a small (maybe 40 gallon) roll-around tank and pump which was moved into place when the machine was run off. This tank usually had grinding oil in it, for use on the older thread grinders; and the oil didn’t get changed very often (i.e. stinky!!). One day this electrical foreman lost his balance and fell butt-first into the tank (it had no cover). He ended up sitting down in it, and what a mess; of course he went home to get changed. When he returned, there were questions about how this could happen, so he dutifully demonstrated, and fell in again!! 

Lunch time at J&L usually involved standing out near Clinton Street and watching the cars go by. This was the late 60’s-early 70’s, and the muscle car craze was going strong. There were plenty of lead-footed drivers showing off their machines. Clinton Street had just been widened to four lanes, and the railroad tracks had been taken out. So it was smooth sailing with new blacktop all the way to I91.The Springfield Terminal Railroad was still in town, but basically just served the foundry (where the fire station is now), and J&L. They would bring in carloads of iron scrap for the foundry, and heating oil for J&L. The railroad had a small concrete block building on lower Clinton Street, just below where the  Nortrax tractor dealer is now. The rail line ran behind the two J&L buildings and over a steel bridge to the foundry (the bridge is gone now). There was a siding between Plant #1 and Plant #2, where the oil tank cars were placed. I think we burned some sort of industrial heating oil.

Before the street upgrade, the rail line used to run all the way up Clinton Street, taking a left onto Mineral Street, all the way to where the state offices are now (at that time that was J&L Plant #3, where we fabricated all our sheet metal parts). The automobile traffic had to share the (two lane) road when the train was running. Even without the train, driving on Clinton Street was a challenge with the uneven rails and potholes. Most of us drove cars that were forever in need of alignment.

 

J&L is remembered mostly for its lathes, but they also produced several other noteworthy products. The grinder branch of the company produced grinders for various tasks, including thread and form grinders. Grinders are basically used to machine hardened items, using an abrasive wheel, or in some cases, multiple wheels. Because of advances in turning tool technology, a lot of hardened items are now machined on lathes, using “hard turning” techniques (if surface finish is not of paramount importance). But a grinding machine is still indispensable in many instances.

The grinder engineering department was a small group of veterans, some of which were reaching retirement age. So when I transferred into it, I was the young one. The Grinder Engineering Manager was Clyde Quimby. Clyde kept track of all the department tasks on little pieces of paper, which he reviewed every morning. It worked for him. In the beginning, I worked with some of the older engineers on small tasks, to familiarize myself with the product line. But because of the increase of orders, it wasn’t long before I picked up my own projects. Most of the time these were the “Special Tooling” items that were required to be used on the machine order. The basic machines were already engineered, so no work was required from us on them, just write up the order and build it. The “Special Tooling” might include a work holding device (chucks, mostly), perhaps a special tailstock center, or diamond dresser items. Grinding wheels need to be kept sharp, and the only way to do that is with an industrial diamond dresser. These might be just a single point diamond traversed across the grinding wheel face, or perhaps a diamond impregnated roller to dress out a complex shape. The diamonds remove the dull portion of a grinding wheel, exposing new, sharp cutting edges.

J&L had a couple of older model manual thread grinders that they were still selling in the 60’s, one was the 6×36 and the other was the 12×45. The numbers refer to the machine capacity, the first being the largest work diameter, the second being the longest work piece length. These grinders used single point diamond dressers to (usually) dress a single wheel to the shape of the thread form being put on the work. Most of the time the job was to grind threads or grooves on hardened shafts (like an automotive transmission shaft). If threads were being ground, the wheel head could be tilted to the appropriate angle to match the helix angle of the thread. The work slide would traverse at the rate necessary to achieve the proper thread lead, using change gears.

Another grinder product was the E2 and E3 form grinders. Basically plunge grinders to grind annular grooves on automotive shafting. The E2 had a rather limited wheel width capacity, the E3 could mount multiple wheels, with spacers in between, depending on the job. The wheel  adapter could be upwards of 12″ in width, so long shafting with multiple grooves could be accommodated. We also had a line of tap grinders; a specialty grinder to grind the “Christmas Tree” forms on jet engine turbine blades. The latest grinder in the product line was NC controlled, the 1040 shaft and shoulder grinder. This was being developed in R&D when I joined the group.

When I arrived in town, there was a car dealership directly across the  road from J&L Plant #1, that was called Yankee Ford. After I started work, I went into the dealership to inquire about the new Ford Mustang that had been recently introduced. I was interested in a fastback with the high-performance 289 engine. They gave me a price, and details of the financing / monthly payments. It was going to be a stretch, but I thought I could swing it. Until I found out what insurance would cost. So I ended up buying a one year old Plymouth Sport Fury (with the small V8).

The garage was not in business very much longer, and eventually J&L bought the building and converted it into the J&L Technical Center (it is now the town police department). The “Tech Center” as we called it was set up to train customers and employees on how to operate various J&L machinery, mainly the TNC line of lathes. They had a very talented group of instructors of various disiplines, machine mechanical repair, electronic repair, and programming. They had several lathes in the building, and also one of the new 1040 NC grinders. Upstairs were the offices and classrooms, the machinery being on the ground floor. There were a lot of classes given to us engineer types, to educate us on all the necessary facets of these machines. Of course, each one of us was involved design-wise with small portions of the product line, but these classes brought all of it together. We even learned how the programming was done (even though most of us never really applied it).

During the Holidays the Tech Center was a beehive of activity and good cheer. This was the late ’60’s, and partying was pretty much wide open, not frowned upon as it is now (for liability purposes). There was always a big party at the Tech Center, and inside the main plants there were “refreshments” available if you knew where to look. But nothing  really out of control. Usually the bottles became visible during the last hours of the last working day before Christmas. I remember one Christmas in particular, when one of our older engineers happened to be over at the Tech Center. This was the last working day, and everyone was in the proper Holiday Spirit (hic!). A few of the instructors talked him into wearing a wig (he was quite bald), and they took him around the main assembly floor of plant #1. Their plan was to walk him around and introduce him to various people as a “poor customer who couldn’t get home for Christmas”. Our engineer was quite familiar with folks on the assembly floor, but it was amazing how many people were fooled by the wig and the shop coat he wore. But as they introduced him, there were some who slowly realized this was a trick……….

As we moved forward into 1970, there was a big storm brewing between J&L and the union. Union disputes were not uncommon in the valley, there always seemed to be bad feelings between the local UE and the shops. As they say, there are always two sides to the story; I think there may be three sides: Their Side, Our Side, and somewhere in the middle, The Truth…………..