For those of you just tuning in.......you may want to go back to the first post I wrote in this thread to get up to speed with the story so far........before reading this..........



So, to continue where I left off..............




Back in the day when my Clausing lathe was in use, (which I used strictly for business and not for hobby......see......I love machining, but have a passion for making money while doing it) I realized through customer demand that I needed to increase not only capacity with regard to the size and length of the parts I was machining, but more importantly the efficiency in which they needed to be made.

I also knew that despite my LOVE for cranking handles (isn't it GREAT when you know a machine so well, you can blindly reach for handles and find them every time.......every single time?!!) there had to be a way I could do things faster...........

Fall one year......(as in the season.....not as in clumsy) I was sitting in my lawn chair at the edge of the school yard soccer field casually conversing with another parent while watching our young sons engage in a somewhat less than riveting soccer match......(thankfully it was cold out to keep me from dozing off)......when the subject came up regarding our employment. Lo and behold, we were both not only machinists, but had our own businesses as well.

Well, one story led to another, and he being farther along in his business than I offered up some parts I could quote on for him to help with his current backlog.

See, he was telling me about how he just bought a new Haas TL-1 lathe........(ohhhhh, I was all ears now.....) and was going through a bit of a learning curve with it.

It was a way cool machine he described!

You cranked the handles to make a cut and then pushed a button and the machine remembered the moves. And when you put a new piece in the machine and pushed that very same button........it did it again......this time......all by itself!! And let me tell you I'd be the biggest liar in the world if I stated I wasn't green with envy as he talked about his new piece of heaven......ummm, I mean, equipment!!

So for a little while......maybe a few months, I did some work for him, and he even did some work for me, some of the bigger stuff I could not do in my Clausing. It was a good thing, all the way around.

One late afternoon, I had some parts of his that I had just finished up and thought,........maybe I'll just take a ride over and drop them off in person.

So I called up my friend and explained to him just that, and after a few minutes of figuring out which giant oak tree he was talking about taking a left just before, and then which stonewall that ran the length of the road to turn right at the end of..........I was on my merry way.

Conveniently for me, his shop was in the next town over, so 15 minutes later and a left at the giant oak, and a right at the end of the stone wall that ran the length of the road........I was there!!

From the outside, you would never know this gentlemen had a machine shop. As I drove down the driveway I came upon a rather large very old two story home with a breezeway attached to very big red barn. Parking my truck in front of the barn I pulled the keys from the ignition and looking around for the usual barnyard dog (not getting my butt chased back to the truck if I could help it).......opened the door and got out.

The first thing that struck me was the sound of a seemingly large diesel engine idling away inside a broken down old 18 wheeler trailer to the side of the barn. As I watched for a minute trying to convince myself that YES, it is an engine inside a trailer, and YES it's running........but why??.........it roared to a higher pitch spewing a cloud of thick black smoke from it's stack pipe as if someone somewhere had just stomped on the gas peddle in the hopes of freeing it from its place amongst the knee high grass and picker bushes en-snarled everywhere around the trailer grasping onto any and everything in an attempt to reach even higher towards the sun. But it was not to be.......and in fact it appeared to have been perhaps many many years since that particular spot was vacant.

As I reached into the back of my truck to gather up the box for my customer a familiar voice welcomed me to his home.

We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, talked of the weather, and as I handed him the box of parts and was about to open the door to my truck, he asked if I'd like to see to his shop..........

"WOULD I????"...........I shouted out loud.......well, in my head anyways...........I simply responded with a "Sure".......but knowing of this new Cnc lathe.......I just had to see it!!!

"Great", he said, "Follow me, my shop is in the barn. That diesel generator over there is how we power everything. Oh, and I have something else to show you, something that you may be very interested in!" and with that we headed off into the barn.





To be continued...............