O/T VALUE OF THE FORUM

[Scott Bond]

Good Morning Everyone

When I was new in the shop I would oil my mill completely everyday, including the little spot way up on the top of the draw-bar. After about a year of covering myself in oil every morning, my friends informed me that that was not for oil ,it was the center required to make the draw-bar on the lathe.

To my friends on the forum. I read every question ,and every answer, so that I may continue to be informed.

[gcode]

When I worked night shift, we used to stick

globs of grease on the backside of door handles and levers. It was our way of saying good morning to the day shift

[Trevor Bailey]

Ah, the good 'ol days. How about after the first shift got finished complaining about the night shift and got cleaned up from the door sludge, they grab the machine door handles to find more slim and then get sprayed by the coolant lines pointed at them.

Ah yes, the good 'ol days.

[JAMMAN]

3 of my earlier jobs were in die shops dealing with electrical terminal dies. The punch and die sections were so small that the diemakers had to have microscopes. One of our favorite gags was putting a thin coat of spotting blue around the eyepieces of the scopes. Interesting results usually.

Now days I alter the mill8.txt file to add insults to new programmers as they exit mastercam.

"Do you really want to exit mastercam" becomes

"you suck and it isn't anywhere near break time"

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: JAMMAN ]

[Andy]

In 1965, there was this master machinist with a wood Gertner (Sp) classic machinist tool box and his pride and joy, the guy was a jerk they said.

We were on the night shift he was on days.

We took an 3/8 x 8" Lag bolt and cut it in half. Then machined complementary angles on both ends. 30 and 60 deg. We then machined small holes in the middle of each cut ends and inserted needles in the hole with sharp end out. Just before quit time we inserted the top piece into the lid of the tool box and the other end in the front of the box so that it appeared to go right through the box. We deftly added some sawdust around the bolt and on the bench just below and went home.

I've felt bad ever since. Aparently it was real hard on the poor guy.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

As the proud owner of an Oak Gerstner Journeyman toolchest, I would've cried at first if I saw that, but after seeing that it was just a gag, I would've been laughing pretty hard, that sounds pretty good. I like gags as long as nobody gets hurt.

Speaking of gags, I was an AE for a machine tool company and we used to "lend" machines to Distributors when they had shows and stuff. Well most of the time they would get sent back in fairly decent shape, not too many chips, a spot of rust here and there. No biggie. But, there was this one Service Engineer that ALWAYS sent the machines back in HORRIBLE shape. He woudl graeas the table while there was a TON of chips in the T-Slots. I got tired of this guy's crap so one day they told us we needed to ship them another machine. He, he, he. First off, I made sure the machine was spotless, no chips, no rust, clean, perfect. Then I proceeded to "protect" EVERY SINGLE piece of exposed metal, every orifice, spindle tube. All told there was pretty close to 2 Gallons of grease on that machine(usually just a light coating is all they get MAYBE a pint tops). All the handles, even the control cabinet handles (which you have to get into to power up the machine). Oh, and I can't forget how we "protected" the tool probe. , there is a little "box" in front of the machine where it is stored with a door, I filled it FULL of "popcorn", so when he went to open it up, he, he, oh, I'm bad huh? To top it all off, I wrote his name in the grease so that he would be the one that had to clean it. Even my boss was laughing.

That's my gag, so don't xxxx me off!!!!!!! j/k

[bryan.davis]

On my apprenticeship one of the second year apprentice projects was to make an engineers square that looked remarkably like the one supplied in the toolchest we were issued with, allong with a very stern warning that anything that we lost or damaged we would have to replace!!.

One of the standard gags the second year apprentices would pull on the newbies is to take one of the scrap manufactured set squares, tie a knot in the blade and swap it a apprentices prestine standard issue square.

However on one occasion we pulled this stunt on a particularly mothers boyish looking lad, when he returned to his bench and found the mangled square he wordlessly took it and went to the supervisor and again wordlessly showed it to him.

At this point the supervisor (who had probably seen this stunt 5 times a year for the past 20 years) said with a totally straight face "looks like that may need replacing", upon which the lad broke down crying left the workshop and we never saw him again!!!

[gcode]

As a tank mechanic/machinist in the Marine Corps,

we used to send new guys out to get a "Sky Hook"

from the tool crib. There is no such thing and everyone was in on the gag. The poor guys would be sent all over the base trying to track down the elusive Sky Hook. Some newbies searched for days before they figured it out

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

One more particularly funny episode at one of my former companies. I used to work for Cummins Engine Company, the DIESEL Engine company. Well one popular gag on the Engine Line was to send the newbies looking for a spark plug. As many of may or may not know, diesel engies do not use spark plugs, they use compression to ignite the fuel/air mixture in the cylinder. Some do however use what's called a "glow plug" which functions in a similar manner as a spark plug. I thought it they tried pulling it on me (they should have known better because my dad worked there and let me in on all the gags), they sent me looking for a spark plug so I came back with a glow plug. The joke was on them. Good laughs.

[McRae]

Try searching for a metric adjustable wrench!

MfgEng

[JAMMAN]

I own a metric crescent. and a left handed angle plate with the kangaroo handles.

[brentpr]

Scott,

Would that have been at Schrey's

Happy Holidays.

Brent Robinson

[Scott Bond]

Hi B.R. Nice to here from you

It was about 15 years earlier than our

time at Schrey's. This thread or topic was

not a joke someone played on me. It was

when I was new & making a novice mistake.

Some of the experienced guys were kewl and

helped this new guy .

I wrote this topic to tell my friends on

the forum that ,still today I can make a

a novice mistake. If I can discover them here

on the forum, I can avoid making them on

the shop floor.

I read every question ,and every answer

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: Scott Bond ]