Gather round children, time for a walk down crane operator's memory lane.
I grew up building grain bins in central Iowa. At one time the company was owned by my father and a business partner, I worked both for them and the former owner before them (they both worked for the company before they bought it). 8 or so years after I left there, my dad and his business partner sold out, and the guy that bought them out, is selling out.
Dad called me and sent me the listing of the online auction of some of the remnants, its really hard for him, and he hasn't owned it for 15 years or so. But he spent a majority of his working life there, and its where I grew up working. Anyways, memory lane time.
Item #1 The hobart gas welder that I learned to weld with. Fine heat control by throttle. Learned what points are and what they do. On wisconsin!
Learned if you run out of gas for the torch, you can crank up a stick welder enough to cut something off. Learned to back a 5' long welder behind a 20' wheelbase crew cab, long bed, utility box 1 ton truck (You can just see that little round muffler above the tailgate, but its offset- just thought you all should know). Learned how to reweld the tongue of the welder after learning how not to back it up.
Notice the jack on the tongue, that's right, its just a piece of pipe with two holes, up and down. And it aint balanced either, its tongue heavy. Really tongue heavy.
And oh the joys of pouring gas out of a metal gas can, spilling it all over that square lid, and watching it run toward the hot exhaust. All while Whitey (real name Duane- which I learned 3 years later when I saw his paycheck) stood back smoking a cigarette and laughing at me- "You're going to die young kid!"
I haven't talked to dad if its run recently, but I bet I could get it running. It looks like it has the same tires on it.
Item #2 A ancient stand grinder, that was old way back when I was working there. Its welded up out of some kind of old pickup axle- one of my coworkers claimed it was a model T. No guards, no shields, and it ain't stopping. I know there are dents in the wall behind it, where it grabbed whatever I had in my hands and it wanted it more than I did.
It would take quite a while to wind down after shutting it off. There's probably still DNA from my hands in the wire wheel. Be careful around machinery kids, it can hurt you. Its a wonder I'm still here.
Item #3 Manual tire changer. We sold lots of portable augers, and bought used pickup tires from the local coop tire shop (back when all pickups ran 15 and 16" tires), and mounted them on the ag rims. Of course being used tires, 1/2 of them had a nail or something in them, so you got to remount some of them multiple times.
The tire machine was much older than me, but I didn't wear it out, I don't think anyone could wear one out. That bar leaning up to the left has no paint on it due to lots of hands struggling on some old stiff wall sidewall pickup tire. Michelin's were the best to mount- soft flexible sidewalls.
Item #4 A old wells metal bandsaw
We made up a lot of standard equipment in the winter, and I cut pipe and pipe and pipe on that old saw. Smooth hand wheel. Cuts fast with a new blade, cuts crooked if you don't have it adjusted right. Learned how to adjust guide wheels to make a saw blade run and cut straight. The length stop cast piece is cracked from where its been tightened down too hard on the stop arm (I know nothing about that event
![Cool :cool: :cool:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
).
I know every one of those items was purchased by the owner before my dad, probably in the late 60's or early 70's, and probably already used when he bought it. I used the equipment in the late 80's to mid 90's. It was all serviceable then, and in fact, each one of them is probably simple enough that you could get any one of them to do the same job today, that they were doing in the late 60's. I think very little of the harbor freight chinesium stuff of today will be serviceable in 2080.
Don't any of you bid on the old welder at the auction either- I need more projects around my place! I'd love to have the old saw and the tire changer, but I don't know how I would justify the grinder to a safety inspector.