Hands. Tools. Gauges. Fire. Molten metal. Castings. Forgings. Presses. Welders. All the great stuff that's needed to make the parts to make the cars.
Made me glad that I didn't have to work in a factory, those guys earned every dollar, many operations appeared that speed was important but safety, maybe not so much?
That was really cool. Thanks for sharing that. Very interesting to see how some things were done, there are some missing processes that I would like to see though. I was sweating just watching those guys casting and forging!
Worked a little over 25 yrs. in a cast iron foundry and did every job in the place except the molding. We had machinists, welders and other support personnel. Most didn't even want to venture into the foundry, but in the end, the foundry survives to this day. Thanks for the memories.
ClayMart, can't thank you enough for sending this gem to us. The footage of the crankshaft forging was spectacular. I was pretty certain I knew which car was going to finally come out at the end of the video when first I saw the wheels being made and then it was confirmed when the turret top popped out of the press. Wow, the best 1/2 hour I have spent in a long time. Thanks again.
I love watching videos like this. Back when men were MEN, and actually cared about their trade & took pride.
Wow, that brought back memories of lighting the boilers off on the USS Denver (LPD-9). Never felt very safe during that procedure. You would think the Navy would have figured out the pilot light concept by now, but no, we were still dipping a rag on the end of a !ong rod in fuel oil, lighting it, and sticking it in a hole in the side of the boiler to light them off! Just like the guys in the video This was in 2005, so not that long ago.
Reminds me of the couple years I spent doing maintenance in an old grinding wheel factory. Changing hydraulic seals in old 1000 ton Erie presses is not fun, but maintaining some of the other ancient automated stuff was.
We were still lighting off boilers (215 meg generators) with a roadway flare in 2003. Finally repaired all the igniters by 05. Lite a lower burner first that hen list off the others from the first one.
Very cool and they picked a great car for the subject. When I worked for Kodak we had a similar huge metal press that was converted over for use in our film finishing area. You could feel the vibration throughout the darkroom while it was running and it certainly kept us awake when working the C-shift. Thanks for posting.
Pretty cool vid. No time to see it all today, but now its marked for me and I'll be back. I never worked as a production machinist, only job shops. But I did work in a production shot cast foundry once, did one of everything before I became the tool and die man. You got to respect production workers in about any setting, they used to be the core of American industry.
The Jalopy Journal
