For big guys like this, spending $500,000 on a new machine is better than spending $5,000 on a used machine, they do not even think about it.
18,000 lbs is not a big deal for me any more.
The biggest machine I lifted recently was a 34,000 lbs Bullard VTL (lightened up some down to this weight). I also scrapped a machine 2 years ago that weighed 100,000 lbs, but I did so by parts, I only had a 15,000 forklift at the time.
Indeed, Ig has become a job creator on a multitude of levels. IMHO we need more small business, they contribute more to local ecconomies than mulit-nationals and thier not to big to fail.
That Micromatic honing machine would be right in their wheelhouse, Martin. They make everything from lightweight V8 short-haul truck diesels to the monsters that power their coal-mining machines.
The company that bought up that Textron division, IIRC, was Bates. Bates makes the tooling and honing units for automated honing and boring as they're applied in automotive transfer lines. In effect, instead of selling machine tools, they sell transfer-line modules and the tooling to go with them.
I would have thought they'd keep the stand-alone machine line, because non-automotive engine manufacture generally is a batch process.
But I don't know where it stands today. I follow fabricating rather than machining these days, so I'm out of touch on all of those shifts that occurred when Textron, White Consolidated, United Technologies, and the other big holding companies busted up their machine tool properties.
That's the way that many race-engine builders and small general rebuilders do it. The hand-held motors require a lot of experience to hone main-bearing bores accurately. You'll see that work done with heavy-duty 1/2" drill motors, too.
The rigid hones that are used today, from Sunnen and others, can follow their own lead and they cut pretty fast. So you have to get them started with that lead exactly right. Unlike flexible hones, they won't just follow the bore. There are some parallels to single-point boring and gun drilling.
I can't recall the name of the super ultra large scoops machines used on the cut in Panama, but they bought that company to save the design and continue making them for large projects.
I think it's Bucyrus, which bought Marion, the company that made with weird "walking" Big Muskie excavator. There's a modern marvels type show about it on youtube. It's worth a watch.
I remember that they were making huge weldments, the size of a split level house. The building was not that big, maybe 100,000 square feet. Had a huge overhead crane. I bought some stuff there that worked out very well.
The largest plant I ever saw was the GM diesel electric train locomotive factory in LaGrange. Everything there was huge. I'm not sure what happens there these days though, they seemed to phasing new production to a modern plant in Kansas City at the time.
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