Heads up, if you just simply blacked it out in paint, saved it, and posted it, the original image is still in the file, and a savvy person can just go in and delete the layer of black.
Neat! At an old job, we had a drill sharpener that was on a battleship in the 40’s. The paint stamp on it that said “war finish” by order of the war production board" was neat AF.
Are school only had off brands, we had domost Huroff Broughport and mayonnaiseak not really we had good machines, but old and sturdy is better than new and weak.
A friend of mine had a movie editing table made out of steel. It was from the 50s or early 60s, and was apparently made out of battleship steel.
I’ve heard that after WWII there was so much extra steel that making things out of steel was unusually cheap. As a result, a lot of those things have survived because they could afford to overbuild things using cheap steel. I wonder if it is also that machinists who worked during WWII were used to overbuilding things because they had to survive in a war environment.
I love how Bridgeports look almost completely identical regardless of whether they were cast in the 1950’s or the 1990’s/2000’s.
Fun fact: The machine’s serial number is hard stamped on the flat portion of the knee Y-axis ways, facing straight up. If you turn the y axis most of the way in (push the table towards the turret) the way covers should reveal it. You can then look up the serial number range here to determine when it was cast.
It's a good design that forms the basis of a lot of infrastructure in manual shops. Vises and fixtures are designed with the clearance and capabilities of a Bridgeport in mind and some shops will have dozens of different setups. If a replacement machine isn't identical to the one being replaced, it could cause hours of fixture reworks and a whole mess.
ours is clean, not nicer maintained. It was plant maintenance’s mill for most of it’s life so ours got used well, there is pleeeeenty of slop in the ways that I wish I could take out.
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