American Machinist Memories
Echoes from the Oil Country Vol 2
More wild stories from Osborne, machine shop foreman, back when a machinist was someone who repaired machines.
Stories of repairing governors, hiring good men, fixing pumps and eccentrics
(engines not oil men), bad Babbitt metal, running an old worn out lathe,
and more.
My favorite would have to be sending Charley out to the repair the steam engine at the nitroglycerine factory. Charley, convinced the factory would explode at any instant, was so nervous it's a wonder he didn't wet his pants!
This edition gives us a complete collection of Echoes articles from the very first in July 1900 through June 1902. This paves the way for the compilation of Volume 4 which will be the best yet because by 1903 Osborne's column was probably the most read portion of American Machinist Magazine.
Great reading. 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 softcover 64 pages
No.22830 ... $7.95
Pouring nitroglycerine in preparation for shooting a well.
When Charley was told to go over to the nitro-glycerine factory and fix the engine, he wasn't exactly tickled to death over it. Of course he wasn't expecting to find anything very hard to do about the engine. Indeed, he knew very well that they purposely used cheap stuff there, so that when the factory blew up the loss would not be great. It was this idea of loss that bothered him; believing that the stock of good mechanics was not any too large, the thought of having the shop and the world get along without one of the best of them rather disturbed him.
Then, on the other hand, he had often thought of the nice things the neighbors would say when that calamity did take place..
Osborne's shop apparently built and sold corn shellers as a side line to the machine shop business. Idiots, then as now, would buy a sheller, take it out and abuse it, and come back complaining that it broke...
"And so you are bringing the corn sheller back, are you? Don't like it, and think it not any good, eh? Tested it and found it not satisfactory, and so return it? What kind of a test did you have that bent this handle and pushed this side out? A hemlock knot got mixed with the corn, and both of you were pulling, and your backs were so much stronger than your minds that you didn't stop to see what was the trouble. Now, I didn't make that thing to shell hemlock knots, and you can hardly blame me because your colt got loose in the barn and upset things and broke the hopper off. When I get it fixed you can come and get it, and I will send the bill for it, and for the repairs, to your father. You might kindly mind to test it the next time with a wedge and beetle, or try to use it as a stone crusher. A few drops of oil might keep it from squeaking some. I see you never used any yet. It will be ready for you day after to-morrow. Good day."
A man who has never had any fun with a direct-acting steam pump, or had one of them have fun with him, has not had all the variety there is in life. Almost any one of these pumps can do more different things, and do the same thing in more different ways, than any other piece of machinery I ever ran across. If a man's head swells up so that he begins to think he knows it all, it can furnish the experience that will help to reduce it....
Brown was evidently in a hurry, and that pump was about 400 feet higher up than we were, and the day was very warm.
I went up with him, and to see how she was, I turned on the steam. The pump started right away and took hold of the oil in good shape... I put things together and started it up and returned to the shop.
Brown was there almost as soon as I was and reported things at a standstill. I climbed the hill again, turned on steam and the pump started as before. Brown did some very emphatic cussing and acted as though he wished it hadn't. Again I tore everything apart and did not find any trouble, and when assembled she started as before. I began to question Brown about the source and quantity of his whiskey, but he declared he had sworn off months before.
One of the jobs greatly disliked is repairing the acid pumps. These pumps are used to pump sulphuric acid, large quantities of which are used around the refineries for treating the oil. The fumes of the acid make a man think he has caught a hard cold, while the acid puts holes in shoes and clothing, and if it is the new acid it eats into the flesh, while the spent acid leaves a clinging stink that anyone ever around an oil refinery will be slow to forget...
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