Father's Day

My father passed away on 11-11-11. I don’t know the exact time of his death but let’s just say it was 11:11PM to keep the eleven’s rolling. To me my father was a genius. He could build or fix anything. He was a machinist by trade—a machining god. As a kid I watched my dad fabricate custom speed boats in our one car garage, rebuild engines, rebuild loaders, build houses, and in his final years he built scaled down steam trains in his machine shop. He built two speed boats and four steam trains in his lifetime. 

 He had a small library of car repair manuals that I use to like to read through. They were for specific cars in the 60’s and 50’s like a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner, or a 1955 Cheverolet Belair. Inside the repair manuals he’d add notes throughout. I asked him why he added all of the notes. He told me those were all the steps they left out and that if you followed the procedure as it is written you will be tearing it apart and re-doing it. Some of the notes were from experience while others were from just thinking it through.

I followed in my father’s footsteps and became a machinist. I wasn’t even close to matching his skill level. How could I be he was a machining god—master of all skilled trades. I did experience working side by side with my father in his machine shop but only briefly before I found a job in an aerospace company. That job lasted 14 years and gave me a pension. The next 19 years was divided between two medical companies. Two years at a prosthetic company building artifical legs and the final 17 making micro surgical tooling for ophthalmologist's. My father had no idea of my work history. I only mentioned it a few times and only casually. He never inquired.

The last 17 years of my career as a machinist were highly technical. I was fabricating micro tooling for eye surgeons around the globe. I was the lead machinist. The machines used, CNC Swiss Screw machines were some of the most complex machines to program, set-up and run. I was pushed to my creative limits. I was responsible for creating complex machining processes to manufacturer some of the smallest tools in the world. 

I had to purchase machines which cost around $300K, buy the tooling, determine how the part should be made, program the machine to make the part, and monitor the production cycle to insure all of the parts meet the blue print requirements. The machines I purchased for our company were all from one manufacturer Tornos Bechler. I believe them to be the best CNC Swiss Screw machine in the world and maybe beyond this world. 

 I set up the machining processes so that the machines would run in a lights out mode. This meant while I was asleep, and the owners were asleep, my machines were all running producing parts and making them and our company money. Numerous safety features were added to ensure the process worked—fire suppression systems, and tool checkers. Should either detect something wrong the machine shuts off. Also, I had to modify the three hundred thousand dollar  machines to meet our required production needs. One of the best improvements I made to the machines was to remove the viewable smoked doors with clear doors. The smoked doors made viewing operations at times impossible and put a great strain on the eyes and we were all about eyes. I had clear glass doors custom made so that we could now easily view operations. The manufacturer of the machine only offered smoked doors. The new machines all have clear doors. 

One Saturday morning I was at work checking on my machines that had been running all night—scheduled to run unattended all weekend. I would spot check the machines throughout the weekend maybe two times. While there my father called me and asked me what I was doing. I told him and he asked if he could stop by. I said sure. Nobody was in the company except me and this would allow me to show him our entire company. I placed my dad in a chair with a microscope in front of him and gave him one of the parts that was currently running. The parts are so small they have to be viewed by a microscope at 20X magnification. The part I placed in his hand has a inside diameter hole that is only .015 of an inch. The thickness of a few hairs. It is the smallest inside diameter hole ever made in a titanium part at a depth of .985. 

It is beyond tooling and machine specifications. In other words it is impossible to make. Not even the Germans who are the best in the world at fabricating micro tools and who were my toughest competition would even attempt to make this part. I created the entire machining process and it worked. Our company now boasted that we have a microsurgical instrument with the smallest inside diameter hole in the world, and to this day it’s never been duplicated. The manufacturer of the machine Tornos Bechler would bring possible customers to our shop and sales pitch them with the parts I was fabricating. They really should have given me a commission. 

The part sells for around $150.00. My machine spit them out like popcorn kernels every three minutes so 20 an hour. If you do the math my machine is making the company $3K an hour times a weekend run of 48 hours totaling to be $144,000 dollars and that’s just one machine. I had three running 24 hours a day in a lights out mode. My father looked at it intently. He’d pull away from the scope and look up at me, and then look back at the part. He then said, “Mike I have no idea how I would ever make this part. You have surpassed me as a machinist.” I made it. The highest compliment from a machining god. I’m a god too just like my father.

I miss him.

I was once asked to come to a meeting, a design review meeting. It was common for me to be in on these meetings because my opinion mattered considering I'd be the one who would create the machining process. I arrived at the meeting and awaiting me was all of management and the lead design engineer. In front of my seat was a microscope. "Mike we'd like you to look at this part," said the manufacturing manager. I was given a part and I couldn't believe what I was looking at. The smallest pair of scissors I had ever seen. In my mind I was thinking oh hell no don't tell me you want me to make this. "Mike we'd like you to make this on the Tornos." Now my thought is shouting, "NO FUCKING WAY." I asked who made this scissor. I was told the Germans. I said, "I have a better idea. We buy this off the Germans and put our name on it." I was told there was a problem with the instrument. The blades are weak and break easily. Another hidden thought arose, NO SHIT. The engineer explained to me why and how ours would be a lot stronger than theirs and it made perfect sense. I was able to develop a machining process for this tool and this led to other designs such as micro graspers all on an interchangeable head. The surgeon uses the scissors to cut the lens, pulls the tool out replaces the scissor head with a grasper head, grasps the lens and either pulls it out or locates it where he or she needs it. I think it's a brilliant design and I was glad to be a part of the history of the tool. Shown below the various types of heads that are available all spawning off the scissor. I believe the entire unit sold for around $1500.00. The tooling was autoclaved after use to sterilize the tool and it then was used repeatedly until the blades were dull and could no longer work properly and of course we offered replacement heads. 

All of the tools below I set up machining processes that allowed the part to run in full lights out mode. 

The ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sleeping equaled this $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ when we awoke. I was never asked by management to develop lights out machining processes. I just wanted to utilize the machine to it's maximum performance and they way to do that is to run it like a perpetual motion machine, continuous. Two years after my father passed away I retired from machining. He at least was able to see what his son worked on before he died. I'm happy about that. 

The song below was produced in 1979. I was 19 years old then and had just started my machining career at Sundstrand Data Control. I worked there for 14 years until they were bought out by Allied Signal, who then was bought out by Honeywell. I received a pension from Sundstrand. Coincidently my father at one time also worked for Sundstrand Data Control. There's a fathers day synchronistic moment.