From: Fred Martin (mung@in-touch.net)
Date: Thu Mar 04 2004 - 08:35:25 PST
Hi John...glad to be of some help. <g> I thought I'd seen some big 'ol
clobbering irons in my time...but one job I had years ago was making
locking keys for sow blocks on a board drop hammer used to forge
wrenches and such. These machines couldn't be set on the floor, too much
vibration from hammering...they dug a pit and they had railroad ties
stacked up under them...and anchored to that. Well, anyhow, when I
finished one and took it out to them I thought I'd stick around and see
how they drove it in. It held the bottom die (2 or 3' square steel) to
the machine base. They just wheeled an overhead crane over to it and
they had a bar of steel about 5 or 6" in diameter and about 4' long that
had a piece welded to it to pick up with the crane...and swung away. It
wasn't anything new to them and it had been used before cause it was all
mushroomed on each end...rivaled the sound of any Japanese gong you ever
heard. Those guys looked mean too! <g>
Well, I'm straying away from mil content so I'll add this to ease the
pain of some members: Your talk of bomb casings reminded me of
it...There was a company (I believe in Oklahoma) that made bomb sights
during the second world war. With the war over, there wasn't much use
for bomb sights, so, they were looking for a new product to manufacture.
A tool and die maker back in the tool room decided that he needed a new
fishing reel, so, he designed and built himself a new type fishing
reel...management somehow got to see it (unusual) and said "Hey, thats
so neat...we need to manufacture that and sell it." So, a new business
was born...a new product...but the name stayed the same...the company
was Zero Hour Bombsight Company...(now known as Zebco.) In my collection
I have two that have the Zero Hour Bombsight Company logo under the
reelseat. Fred Martin
John Doherty wrote:
> Thanks for the specific terminology Fred. It eases my mind after all these
> years, to know what that thing was really called.
>
> In my younger years of supporting our military, I worked in a government
> contractor facility making cluster bomb casings and shipping containers. I
> ran a 500 ton draw press making components of the nose cone. It required
> rather large dies, and rather large tie down bolts, and rather large
> wrenches. The press had a tendency to vibrate itself loose from its
> mountings in the floor.
>
> The first time I had to tighten the nuts on the mounting studs, I was
> informed by the shift maintenance supervisor to use the BMF hammer to torque
> 'em. I did, until the forklift operator that was setting the die crushed
> the handle while backing into a little I-beam. We never could find that BMF
> manufacturer listed in any of the tool catalogs. Now, I know we were
> looking up the wrong name! Go figure, after all these years, to find out
> what it really was, NAVY surplus!
>
> Thanks
> John
>
>
>
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