5 Years after Katrina...what happened to the tools?

[Too_Many_Tools]

I note that it is the 5 year anniversity of Katrina.

When the water came, a lot of tools and machines were flooded.

I would like to hear what happened to all that iron.

I would especially like to hear of anyone who restored machine tools that were flooded.

I would think there would be some good lessons for restoring old machines.

I do know that when vehicles are flooded, they are often restored, relocated and resold in different parts of the country.

Did anyone relocate machine tools?

TMT

[wierdscience]

On the coast where the storm surge came in and then quickly went back out a lot of stuff was saved.But it was still saltwater and saltwater trashes everything quick especially motors.

Most of the stuff our customers at work saved were woodworking machines.New motors and bearings and they are good.

The machine shop stuff didn't fair to well,the older stuff that probably wouldn't be hurt much mostly went for scrap,too much cost to re-build.

I know of two pieces of CNC that flooded and were saved,took major effort though.

The stuff in NOLA was almost a total loss,that water came in and sat for months.

I know of one steel wall plant in Chalmette,La that was less than a one year old when it got flooded.Total loss and all of that stuff was new and $$$$$$$.

If a person has small tools they could be loaded and hauled to high ground.Other than that the best tactic I have heard was posted here.

Jack the machine up,slip a couple sheets of heavy mill plastic sheet under the machine,then bring the plastic over top and tie it all up like a trash bag.

Might work,assuming nothing sharp was left to tear holes in the bag.

[Too_Many_Tools]

I seriously doubt that the "plastic bag" approach would work on machines.

Twice I have helped friends recover from flooded basements/crawlspaces.

They both had shops below grade with significant number of fasteners in jars, plastic bags, enclosed tubes, etc.

In each case, EVERY container had leaked water into the container...

What a PITA to have to dry out hundreds if not thousands of fasteners.

One lesson I have learned from helping them recover is that if a machine is restored, you will have to tear it down to the very last piece since water will be everywhere.

TMT

[Too_Many_Tools]

On the coast where the storm surge came in and then quickly went back out a lot of stuff was saved.But it was still saltwater and saltwater trashes everything quick especially motors.

Most of the stuff our customers at work saved were woodworking machines.New motors and bearings and they are good.

The machine shop stuff didn't fair to well,the older stuff that probably wouldn't be hurt much mostly went for scrap,too much cost to re-build.

I know of two pieces of CNC that flooded and were saved,took major effort though.

The stuff in NOLA was almost a total loss,that water came in and sat for months.

I know of one steel wall plant in Chalmette,La that was less than a one year old when it got flooded.Total loss and all of that stuff was new and $$$$$$$.

If a person has small tools they could be loaded and hauled to high ground.Other than that the best tactic I have heard was posted here.

Jack the machine up,slip a couple sheets of heavy mill plastic sheet under the machine,then bring the plastic over top and tie it all up like a trash bag.

Might work,assuming nothing sharp was left to tear holes in the bag.

I would think that with any CNC all the electronics would have to be replaced.

I know that if a car is immersed in water, even if it is restored it will have electrical problems later as electrical components corrode.

TMT

[Deja Vu]

The problem with saving those machines is that they need to have immediate attention just to save the mechanicals. There were too many other priorities after the storm so the machines probably sat and festered before they could get attention.

I wouldn't think there were very many machines.... most of the flooded area was low income areas....I think?

[Dr Stan]

I wouldn't think there were very many machines.... most of the flooded area was low income areas....I think?

That's a misconception, as 80% of NO was flooded. The least effected areas were the French Quarter and the Garden District, but were still heavily damaged. What happened was the Ninth Ward and other low income areas received little to no attention after Katrina.

[Bill Pace]

I've got 3 restorations of the Katrina tools under my belt, A 13x36 South Bend lathe, a little bench top Barker mill, and am just wrapping up an Emco Compact 10 lathe.

The guy I got the tools from had enough of hurricanes and moved up to east Texas and had had a pretty extensive home shop, which he brought with him. When I went to pick up the tools, I was able to see the utter devastation in smaller tools and tool boxes - mics, levels, cutting tools, gauges, etc, etc, virtually junk. I have to say, I was very apprehensive about taking on the machines after seeing the damage to the small tools.

The South Bend turned out very nicely and I adopted it for my personal lathe and use it almost daily.

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/sho...ace+south+bend

The Barker, while it looked terrible, the little thing was virtually undamaged - even the motor was unhurt. (some of my before pics have disappeared from the thread)

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/sho...ight=bill+pace

As I said, I am just now wrapping up the Emco and while I have some pics, they arent tucked into a file yet. The bed on it got the worst damage, with some pretty serious pitting - though it looks bad, I dont think it will affect the operation. The rest cleaned up very well.

Restoring these tools would probably not be everybody's idea of fun, it was a lot of work - very nasty (course restoring most any older machine is nasty!) But I'm an admitted "tool-a-holic" and I enjoyed the heck out of it

[Too_Many_Tools]

[QUOTE=Deja Vu]The problem with saving those machines is that they need to have immediate attention just to save the mechanicals. There were too many other priorities after the storm so the machines probably sat and festered before they could get attention.

QUOTE]

I can believe that.

When I was helping my friends rescue their machines after the water damage the longer a machine sat unattended the worst the corrosion..you could see it happening day by day.

To help buiy us time, we got some livestock tanks and filled them with kerosene and fillled them full of the smaller stuff so we could do the machines first.

TMT

[Too_Many_Tools]

I've got 3 restorations of the Katrina tools under my belt, A 13x36 South Bend lathe, a little bench top Barker mill, and am just wrapping up an Emco Compact 10 lathe.

The guy I got the tools from had enough of hurricanes and moved up to east Texas and had had a pretty extensive home shop, which he brought with him. When I went to pick up the tools, I was able to see the utter devastation in smaller tools and tool boxes - mics, levels, cutting tools, gauges, etc, etc, virtually junk. I have to say, I was very apprehensive about taking on the machines after seeing the damage to the small tools.

The South Bend turned out very nicely and I adopted it for my personal lathe and use it almost daily.

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/sho...ace+south+bend

The Barker, while it looked terrible, the little thing was virtually undamaged - even the motor was unhurt. (some of my before pics have disappeared from the thread)

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/sho...ight=bill+pace

As I said, I am just now wrapping up the Emco and while I have some pics, they arent tucked into a file yet. The bed on it got the worst damage, with some pretty serious pitting - though it looks bad, I dont think it will affect the operation. The rest cleaned up very well.

Restoring these tools would probably not be everybody's idea of fun, it was a lot of work - very nasty (course restoring most any older machine is nasty!) But I'm an admitted "tool-a-holic" and I enjoyed the heck out of it

I would like to see the Emco pictures when it is convenient for you to post them.

Could you go into detail as to the unique problems the Emco offered?

I have several Emco machines and God forbid I would ever be in the same situation, I would like to know what to what for since the Emco is a precision machine.

Also...what challenges did the SB lathe offer?

TMT

[JimB]

I don't post much here. Mainly hang around in the Antique Forum at PM. Darin (wierdscience) is a friend.

The one machine that comes to mind is Oscar Holderer's Atlas lathe. Oscar's lathe flooded in Katrina. It had been used in making models for the early space program by Oscar who was part of Wernher Von Braun's team at Huntsville. He still lives there today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5S_145es-Q

So the lathe has a deep history.

As luck would have it the lathe had been given to Oscar's son another friend of mine who lives south of the tracks in Gulfport. We brought it to high ground at my little shop after the storm. I cleaned it up and it survived. Jim