Machine Tools - History Channel's Modern Marvels *Thursday*

Just happened to flip on the tube to the History channel and Modern Marvels is doing a show on the history of the 7 machine tools.

Joel. phx

Guess the file didn't count,... ;)

Reply to
Joel Corwith
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What's that Lassie? You say that Joel Corwith fell down the old rec.crafts.metalworking mine and will die if we don't mount a rescue by Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:45:45 -0700:

Full of errors. See them show a mill at work, as they talk about grinders.

Reply to
dan

I found the show interesting

Reply to
Wayne Mak

Me too, and more importantly, so did my wife.

She's lovingly tolerated a garage full of machines without really understanding why I like them. The show did a fine job of illustrating both the utility and beauty of machine tools. Besides, she's from Ohio and I got to say, "see, it's in your genes too".

There were about 4 or 5 noticable errors, but they didn't seriously detract from the message of the show.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

Well, I love nailing the history channel for using photos of the wrong equipment in battles (not like ave Joe would notice), so what all did you see?

Joel. phx

Reply to
Joel Corwith

Me too, and more importantly, so did my wife.

Same here.

Her most interesting remark: "Why didn't they mention the Monarch 10EE?".

Reply to
Peter H.

Good question. I actually spent some time just down the road from Sidney and it was only a couple of months ago I found out that it's the home of Monarch.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

The quality of media information has gone in the dumper lately, such things as "soldering" sections of steel together to produce bank vaults, and 22 caliber shotguns. Don't the producers hire proof readers smarter than the market grade zucchini nowadays? Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

We still make castings for Monarch but we don't ship to Sidney, most go to Cortland, NY. We make some machine tool beds, carriages, tables, etc. Nothing like we did up to about 10 years ago though.

My wife' uncle is interviewed on the History Channel machine tool program. His name's Jerry Languth and he is now retired from Makino. He worked for LeBlond since about the mid-1950's. Now the LeBlond complex has been torn down (about 10 years ago) and the only thing left is the clock tower and power plant. The clock tower houses a candy shop, and the power plant houses a "Don Pablos" restaurant. There's other restaurants and retail stores there now. I eat lunch in that area about 1-2 times per week. There's lots of minimum wage jobs in that area but probably not as many as what LeBlond employed. They were bought by Makino about 1985 or so and they built a plant up the road in Mason, Ohio

They interview the top man at Cincinnati Milacron Machine Tool Division, I think it is Kyle Seymour? (can't remember). The machine tool division was sold to UNOVA in 1999 so I think the show pre-dates that date. Anyway, the division was renamed "Cincinnati Machine" which is nice since the Cincinnati name goes back into the machine.

It's an amazing complex of buildings with a rich history. During one four-week period in 1942, three weeks before Pearl Harbor, "the Mill" produced more than 1,000 machines. The 1,000th machine came off the line September 5, 1941. The complex was producing machine tools at a rate of one every 40 minutes. In 1942 the complex produced 17,511 machines. To acheive this effort also required the assistance of 27 outside foundries and 150 subcontractors. One of every 12 machine tools produced at that time carried the Cincinnati name.

...now the rest of the story....

Sad part is they moved the ENTIRE business away from Oakley (suburb of Cincinnati) in 2003. We saw it coming over the 2002-2003 years. Manufacturing operations ceased about 1 year ago, gradually one plant after another closing. The complex had about 7-8 plants depending on how you count them. The buildings are still there but all the machinery was sold at auction last November. It took a week to auction everything off. Now there are only two items left, at this amazing place are "Factory Power" where steam and compressed air is produced for the complex, Kirk and Blum, a company that makes industrial ovens and ventilation equipment, and one remaining part of the Cincinnati Milling Machine complex.

I work at the foundry that was built in 1939-1940 by "Cincinnati Milling Machine Company" which was later named Cincinnati Milacron, and then eventually just "Milacron". The foundry was sold in 1988 to private investors. We are still going (stronger this year) but we are lonely here at the old complex. It is a sad sight to see every day driving down Marburg, and Forrer street. But, I am glad to be a part of the last vestige of manufacturing left of the once-proud machine tool company that carried the Cincinnati name around the world. Back in the early part of the war, (and pre-war days) the company worked 24/7 in this complex. The foundry had over 1000 employees and the entire complex employed perhaps 6,500. We have about 120 in the foundry, 60 in the fab shop and the rest of the 230 workers are maintenance and admin. We are surviving, and the foundry's workload has actually increased this year. Now only a small portion of our output goes into machine tools and an even tinier portion goes into "Cincinnati". But, if you own any machine built before about 1995 mostly likely we made the casting for it.

Mark

PS- sorry to be so long winded. I have been collecting information about Cincinnati foundries and I hope to write a book in the future.

Reply to
Mark

C'mon Jim, your garage isn't full of machines. You've lots of room left. At least, that *is* what you tell your wife, eh?

michael

Reply to
michael

Splendid essay. Don't stop.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

Hear hear! And please let us know the ISBN when your book is complete.

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

The real howler for today was a story on the local news where the newsreader is saying a single engine plane crashed, while the video is clearly showing a twin engine plane crash.

If they can't even count to two, how do you expect them to get anything really technical correct?

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

At one point, the show talked about US machine tool productivity and use during WWII, and used stock footage of Russian workers assembling PPSH submachineguns in Russia. :^)

David

Reply to
David R. Birch

submachineguns

I think I said out loud "that looks like footage of a Russian factory", because I didn't recognize the machinegun he was fabricating.

Joel. phx

Reply to
Joel Corwith

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