Chapter 3

The aisles were clean and the new machines were dusty from disuse, save, here and there, a perfect lathe or mill, rotary broach or grinder, powered hacksaw or shipfitters bandsaw stood out sparkling ... the sparkling ones had clean benches and polished maple tool chests and each had a well thumbed manual of operation with hand written notes in the back pages. Some few had all the earmarks of recent use. Most of the new stood where older machines had stood for years. The new had electric motors ... the old were belt driven.

It was easy to see a systematic rework of the shop was in process before abandonment.

A shame really, the old machines had the fit and finish of clay cast iron or steel. The new were sand cast. It would take years of loving care before the coarse castings were as perfect as the clay cast.

After the run through the active shop the doors leading to the repair/refurbishment area was the next attraction. The benches had scattered and left wrenches, allen keys, nuts, bolts, spilled and hardened grease and mouldy rags and welding rods still on wands scattered hither and yon...

Someone had said, “Five o’clock! Down tools ... last one out get the lights.”

They left and never came back.

Next came the stores room.

At the prices asking today ... racks of 30 million dollars worth of plate, round stock, tubing ... both round and square ... forgings, castings and sheet aluminum ... titanium plate and tubing ... colossal ... simply astonishing ... and abandoned. Boxes of milspec parts and pieces and, “what’s that?” “I dunno, but there’s a shelf of ‘em.” The shelf faded into the distance, it was so long. “Never had a call for one.”

The storerooms for used and outdated machinery were immense and the broken tools tool room? Spacious doesn’t fit.

And they were back at the passthrough door. The sign over the door read...”What you do here, stays here. For public conversation ... You make pencils.”

“Those were really neat little cars,” I said.

Gen said, “Thanks ... can I drive ‘em on the street?”

“Why would you do that?”

“I spent the last two years learning the machines so I could build them.”