Crimes against Machinery

[Tony]

In the process of cleaning / breaking down / rebuilding the new-to-me-shaper
I'm finding a surprise or two along the way..

The knurls on this machine -- the nuts that lock the front of the table,
the one on the ram head for angle, the door on the side, etc.. looked all
chewed-over and grossly deformed -- looked like someone using channel
locks on a knurled nut.

but what a surprise when i hit them on the wire brush.. brand new
chrome handles/knurls!

some genious PAINTED the chromed knurls black. filled the knurls of course..
tightening them by hand i suppose deformed the paint.. and made it look
like channel lock damage

I realize this thing was in a school.. but, boy, that's got to be a sign,
doesn't it? of a soon-to-be serial murderer??

-Tony

[Scottike]

I don't think it's too uncommon with schools to paint machinery their putting up for sale for some reason.
I recently, previewed a nice little 12x36 logan at a HS. It had a nice new brushed on coat of gawd awful blue paint, sloppily applied, but at least they managed to keep it off the important parts (ways, rack, etc.)
I asked the fellow that let us in to preview " how much More detention did they give the kid get that painted this thing?"

[Rustybolt]

Scott I always thought they made the kids with no mechanical talent paint the machines.
To keep them from hurting themselves.

[oil mac]

Thankfully there are still one or two engineering factories left, with a bit of "mechanical instinct"left, But by and large in an awful lot of schools & colleges, where a great deal of the new generation of instructors/ teachers/lecturers being churned out by higher grade teacher training colleges, in which any vestige of good proper &sound factory procedures are known, seems to be becoming more &more remote

In this scenario, the poor old machine tool has nobody around it with any knowledge of keeping her clean, operating her carefully, or generally knowing how she should look, This leads to at least two situations i heard of recently, In the first one idiot principal of a further education college threw all the machine shop plant out in the snow &rain, Included in this was a nice Dean Smith & Grace lathe

In the second case all the machinery and tooling, was fired straight into a scrap skip, ( suppose it saved yard storage!) This all carried out with the knowledge of the so called "Head of Engineering studies" in both cases !

No wonder the kids end up without a clue.

[camdigger]

Nothing posted yet competes with the antique tractor club at home's treatment of donated shop machines. They have a nice 36" or 48" radial drill, 24" or so shaper, and a 12' planer - all were running when donated. All 3 machines sat in a 3 sided pole shed for 10 years before being moved to the steam engine shed. They couldn't move the planer in one piece so took the bed off the base. They couldn't fit the planer and base in the steam shed so the left it behind the building uncovered, unoiled and DIRECTLY UNDER THE STEAM ENGINE EXHAUST It has been there 2 years. Probably due for the scrap heap now. The tragedy is that machines like these are scarce locally. Visitors to the club's grounds have been begging to buy the machines for years. Not so much now...

[Scottike]

Scott I always thought they made the kids with no mechanical talent paint the machines.
To keep them from hurting themselves.

I thought that's what art class was for...Shop classes were an elective in my school days, and most mechanically inclined wanted to be there instead of art and vice versa for the mechanically challenged.

[justanengineer]

I wouldnt look at excessive amounts of paint as abuse, but rather as protectant. In humid environments you have a choice for machinery that tends to sit (such as many shapers), you can either protect it or you can let it rust. Call me crazy, but Id much rather peel off paint than deal with rust any day, and growing up in NY Ive dealt with more than my share of rusty iron. Excessive paint is rather similar to excessive amounts of solidified grease/oil. Its ugly, but does its job quite nicely.

If there is no actual damage caused by this to the machine itself, there is no need to get on that tall horse.

[Scottike]

Your right-A coat of paint is prefered to a coat of rust. But, a fresh coat of paint on a machine that's up for sale sets off alarmbells to me, especially if it was poorly done - It always makes me wonder what kind of sins are hiding under that slopped on paint.

[oil mac]

Camdigger,
I used always to think, that donating a nice machine tool to a preservation group or museum, was the way forward, In the last twenty odd years not any longer The story of the nice old machine tools at your local tractor group is sad , but not uncommon, The same lack of care to a machine tool is often the same over here in the U.K.

Where preservation groups are concerned, old tractors, buses, steam engines etc, frequently the guys who go to great pains to match the paint to the Nth degree polish everything to death etc, Will treat a nice machine tool with utter disregard, Sadly the modern museum proffessionals of today are not far behind.

[Rustybolt]

I thought that's what art class was for...Shop classes were an elective in my school days, and most mechanically inclined wanted to be there instead of art and vice versa for the mechanically challenged.

Sometimes they ran out of remedial classes to put em all.