"jim rozen" wrote in message
...
In article , Harold and Susan Vordos says...

I can well imagine! Ever get pinched?

No, but we did have some part ripouts. A few of them
knocked the steel doors of the machine. We ran them with
the door interlocks defeated - but it was suicide to
leave the doors open on the large jobs. My rule was
to never hit that green button until the door was
*all* the way closed.

Jim

Yeow!~

That really puckers your butt.

I recall running some fairly large chrome moly forgings on the LeBlond
sliding gap bed (a 48" machine) at Sperry. The forgings, which we fully
machined, were a part of the axle assembly for the missile launchers. In
roughing, one of the operations was to face off approximately 1/2" off the
length, which we normally did with just one pass. I'd been running the
parts for a couple days and finally had my confidence up that they wouldn't
pull off the chuck. They were held only by a short distance, from the
inside, with the standard external jaws in a 3 jaw chuck. The part was
roughly 12" long, maybe 9" diameter, with a flange that was much larger on
the end we chucked. The bore was fairly large, but the wall was more than
adequate for serious chucking. Well into the day, I started the facing
cut on one of them, only to have it come out of the chuck. It all happened
so fast I didn't really have time to react properly, but instinct made me
step backwards, at which time the forging hit the ground where I had been
standing. Damned things weighed maybe 25 pounds. That sucker would have
driven me like a nail. sigh!

I really miss those days! Best job I ever had.

Harold