"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:23:42 -0400, the infamous Pete Keillor
scrawled the following:

On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:17:43 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:06:54 -0400, the infamous Randy
scrawled the following:

This is just too neat to not pass on.

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides...turing_Process

no CNC here.

Cool as hell is right, Randy. Man, I'd never seen a drill press that
big, but when I saw the guy cutting out the crank webs (1 foot thick
in one pass) with the cutting torch, I was impressed. Oh, later pics
show that it's using a template to guide the torch on its rounds.

Are those half inch thick pieces of swarf the guy is cutting into the
sides of the webs on the mill? Bigass chips, mon. Is that where you
use a face mill or flycutter? (pic with two webs on the table, one
marked 487/56, and the pic below it)

Those are (ahem) large engines!

Larry, I think that's a planer. And 4 and 5 down from there they're
using a vertical shaper to do the outside profile.

Ayup, mouseover showed "planing" so I guess they're shifting both
those big, honkin' webs under the shaper knife. Planing = shaping,
right?

Well, in planing, the work moves on long bedways while the tool remains
stationary. In shaping, the tool moves and the work stays still. Planers
were used for surfacing long parts. Most planers were converted to
planer-mills near the end of that era. A few are still around, but the big
engines, big machine tools, and other things that required planing are not
as prevalent as they once were.

--
Ed Huntress