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Comment by mauvehaus | Hacker News Reader

If you're into machining, the American Precision Museum[0] in Windsor, VT is highly worth a visit.

I had the good fortune to tour the Starrett factory some years back. They were still running pre-NC screw machines to make parts. It really is true that old machines, well cared for, will last just about forever. Apparently it's something of an axiom in the machining industry that tools that are no longer economically viable for large scale production end up in job shops where the capability is needed but there isn't a need to pump out volume.

The Springfield Armory[1] is also a neat visit. For hopefully obvious reasons, their machining exhibits are focused on the production of weapons. The American Precision Museum is actually housed in a historic privately-owned gun factory. It turns out a lot of the progress in machining is driving by the need to make weapons.

[0] https://americanprecision.org/

[1] https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm

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I worked at my fathers machine shop (which was a subsidiary of New Britain Machine Company) a couple of summers when I was in high school in the mid 70's. It was quite an experience and the employees were some of the crustiest characters I've ever met. The second summer, I worked with this guy named Ray on a huge machine that made the heads to ratchet wrenches (the square part with the little ball). He was one of these guys that was continuously pissed off. A man's man probably only 35, but looked 45 and smoked Camel unfiltered cigarettes. But the thing I remember most about him was that he could swear for a minute straight and never use the same word twice. For example, he called the machine "The Afterbirth". I'll never forget that man.

> But the thing I remember most about him was that he could swear for a minute straight and never use the same word twice.

Legend! I’d have enjoyed working with him. The smell of cigarettes could be a turn-off. Only perfectionists (in their craft) can use that level of swearing.

Did you ever shop at my grandfather’s hardware store?

This was in southern Maine, not Connecticut.

If you go in late August and have a strong affinity for amateur astronomy, you can have one heck of a weekend by visiting Stellafane 10 miles south of there in Springfield VT. Probably an abuse of a comment but it's so rare to find two things to do so close together in that area.

Visited when I was a kid it was fun seeing all the belt driven machinery that wasn't so different than my father's machine shop (job shopped manual and CNC milling and turning.) The 90s was when we saw the manufacturing downslide then my father got sick and passed. We kept it going but by the 2000's China was eating everyone's lunch. Though the fall of the Berlin wall killed a lot of aerospace work which was big business on Long Island. We sold the business in 2006 and somehow the guy who bought it is still in business though downsized and runs it himself now.

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