Close enough isn’t in my vocabulary. The processes we use are of professional quality and profitable at the same time.
As someone selling a product, I'm damn glad you have that philosophy Ken.
Heavens knows, industry needs more of that!
We wouldn't have so many recalls and defective products and services if we did.
As someone who is not selling anything, I can afford to put innovation, expediency and unorthodoxy ahead of convention.
I am glad you stick to quality and known reliable processes.
I completely agree that you can hand file a head, or mill one with imperfections and do the finish work by lapping. This is not the philosophy we use at KOR.
Nor should it be, and good that you are here to point out how it should be done, but should you be decrying the "Backyard" way, other than you don't do it?
There are many ways to skin a cat; some leave more fur than others.
(I love this quote!) True enough! But if these guys cannot get access or afford to have a head milled to correct quench, you are not going to scare them off of hand filing are you? While you may not feel comfortable encouraging it, may never do it in your own shop, it is an expedient for a 16 year old to learn the effects of quench and the skills of filing and lapping. He may just be driven on to become a top rate machinist later in life. I was.
Before I went full time at KOR, I ran an aircraft assembly shop with 40 employees. My people made Textron bomb triggers, cable assemblies that open the launch doors for nuclear weapons, armor for the Humvees in the Middle East, and over 300 different parts for the C130.
Well, if we are spilling our CV here, I might have been a guy in the back of one of those C130s many years ago. Glad as hell they were so well made. I also got on a project back then to improve the Elcan rifle scope because I knew enough about them to modify mine with a rubber band to win national marksmanship competitions. I am a certified machinist and millwright, electrician, electronics tech and ASQ certified Quality Tech, so I do know about ISO9000 and AS9000 standards and appreciate their importance.
If I seem anal with all of this grinding, filing, bird sh*t welding and sub standard machining…………………………Blame it on ISO, AS standards, and The FAA.
I have changed jobs quite frequently over the years, but currently I am responsible for the immediate machine reliability of a factory employing over 1200. I am not an engineer, but in the past it was my job to get the engineer's projects to actually work. When the first Iraq war broke out, I was given the task of immediately modifying a machine to raise our production of armoured vehicle tires tenfold, and given a team of tradesmen and engineers to accomplish it. We did it, in part because of my ability to lead from the front, and gobby stick weld and hand file prototypes up in minutes to test an idea when it would have taken days to get a prototype done through "proper" channels, to "proper" standards. Be sure that in the end, things were tidied up to proper standards. My point is that there is a place for expediency.
If you need to change out a ring and pinion on a Dana 60, I know the right way to do it. If it needs to be done 20 miles back in the woods and the only tools you have are wrenches and a hammer and cold chisel, I can still do it. If you need to rely on a piece of machinery in a remote setting, guys with my adaptive skills, backyard/barnyard/3rd-world/outside-the-box skills are invaluable. They learn them by using their hands and their brains from an early age to accomplish things that others feel are impossible for the average mortal. These are the Henry Fords and John Brittens and Burt Munro, and untold Chinese entrepreneurs who are building factories on the fly to sell cheap to the world. They are not held back by convention.
God Bless America!!!!! I’m going to fire up the Stratocaster and rip the Star Spangled Banner for Jess. Be back soon.
I think we should also say a little prayer to encourage a bit of grinding, filing, bird sh*t welding and sub standard machining along with good old American ingenuity so that we have a generation that can think outside the box enough to get this once mighty economy going again. It starts at home.
If we all just follow the leader and try to buy our way to success, we will be following the Pied Piper into the Yangtze River. Gotta start learning to think for yourself, work to get results, not just phoney bragging rights and inflated lists of mods. Money may get you there, but brains, honesty and work are the best route. Lessons I learned hotrodding machines got me where I am today.
Ken, you are a Godsend. Thank you for your videos and your advice and just plain doing things right. From what I see (and I have a good eye) you are a top notch operator. No one starts that way. Just have a little tolerance for the guy looking to learn his way up on these Blasters.
