Comments

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  aldo crose July 18, 2010 at 2:08pm

  at our age it may be hard to make a SPRUE
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  Dan Brown July 18, 2010 at 10:47am

  You hammerheads are just jealous of my superior intellygence and skills . You David , probably have trouble figgerin' out which half of a flatback pattern goes in the cope . Jim - my email address is molderbrown@gmail.com .
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  James L. McCalla July 17, 2010 at 11:14am

  Hi David, you may be right about that Danny Brown, anyone who had fun pouring bearings has to be walking around with a port list. LOL
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  James L. McCalla July 17, 2010 at 12:55am

  Hey Dan, send me your e-mail address, will be heading your way the last of July. Mine is mlcjmc@att.net
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  Dan Brown July 16, 2010 at 10:20pm

  Maybe I'm a masochist deep down , but I always enjoyed making bearings . Especially the main shaft bearings off of a tin can . Don't to this day know why , but I did . I remember one time on the Prairie AD-15 , we had four sets of mains , and maybe a dozen smaller ones , when the division boss came down to the shop and announced that the duty section (all 2 of us) were gonna have to reopen and rebuild a HEAD that was just to port of the shop , on the , main deck . This head had been locked up since WW 2 , and the deck gang was using it for a shit locker . All we had to do , says he , was to cut a hole in the foundry bulkhead for entrance , and have at it . When I pointed out to him three very pertinent facts - 1 - we had bearings to pour , 2 - the repair boss wanted them done ASAP , and 3 - there was only 2 of us in each duty section , he just waved his imperial JG's arm and said - GETT'R DONE . The repair boss (a prince of a feller) was the CDO that night , so I went lookin' for him , to explain why his bearings would just have to wait . I think he musta been a mustang , cause lordy lordy that man could cuss ! He finally got it all together , smiled , and told me not to worry about it , and to go back to buildin' bearings . Roughly 20 minutes later the JG came back into the foundry and said that there had been a change of plans , and that we didn't have to worry about redoin' that head. I did notice however , as he was leavin' the shop , a slight curl of smoke curlin' off the ass end of his kakis.
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  James L. McCalla July 12, 2010 at 7:46pm

  Hi David, I just thought I would throw this thing in about the single blade pattern that was used to make any number of blades on a propeller. I thought there would be more molders commenting on this subject since several molder that I knew have made this project. This was one of the more interesting projects that we had for the ML-B students.
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  Craig Lami July 9, 2010 at 5:44pm

  The MM in the machine shop gouged out a main shaft bearing we had just poured at DATC for the second time. This meant we were supposed to melt it out and start over again for the 3rd time. I got a piece of angle iron and poured some very thin babbitt sticks. I took them, some blue bearing sealer putty, and an aircraft oxy-acetylene torch to the machine shop and puddled in the gouge right there in the vertical lathe. Took about 20 minutes and saved 3 days work.
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  James L. McCalla July 9, 2010 at 1:56pm

  How many of you old "cup-saucer-spoon" molders have ever made a propeller from a single blade pattern?
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  Phil Lowe July 9, 2010 at 1:12pm

  With all respect David, you were long gone by then and Charlie had softened some in his later years, believe it or not. He was still gruff and tough but he didn't bust balls for kicks so much anymore, unless you washed out the coffee maker, of course.
  
  I'm not going to blow my horn here all day, but I will say I was damn good. Glenn Kamppi will testify to that. In fact, I was the first one in the fleet to ever use a centrifugal casting machine to rebabbitt bearings. The resulting runout solidified from my face shield to my Molder's boots. I got better at that too.
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  Phil Lowe July 9, 2010 at 11:16am

  Ah, the old cup, spoon, and saucer. I was just a Molder Striker and Chief Charlie Whiteside didn't think I had it in me yet, and he was right. Good thing some of the older fellas liked to get a dig in on him whenever possible. They weren't supposed to help but they did. After all, isn't that the only way to pass the craft? Anyway, the chief was very surprised when we broke it out. He grumbled a bit, but he started teaching me more after that until I started teaching him on how to rebabbit bearings. Everyone hated doing bearings but it came to me naturally. I used to have a great time staying up into the wee hours doing the big ones like main shaft bearings, especially the shaft end bearings with a thrust bearing at one end. Once you got started you had to either finish it in one continual process, or melt it out, tin it all over and start again. Talk about a lost art.