Precision Tube Company in the 70's was an organization of 160 people engaged in the business of manufacturing fine specification tubing from twenty-two different metals. What is called a secondary redraw mill, they bought big tubes from primary producers and redrew them to the customer's specification, often fabricating complex shapes. The products were used in so many diverse ways that my mentor, Anthony Zuercher, used to say we were in the business of 'buggy whips and outer space." It was true, the company produced many products for the American space shuttle as well as thin square copper tubes to restore the radiator on an antique Mercedes Benz.
I started working summers at Precision Tube Company in 1960 at the age of thirteen. I started as a maintenance assistant during a strike by the Steelworkers union, my father drove me to work. The company was started by his father in 1932. I was given opportunities each summer to learn different aspects of the Company. The concepts of mensuration, calibration and standarization were imbued by the study of specifications including ASTM and ISO standards. I studied metallography at fifteen; mixing etchants and defining grain size.
When I returned from a tour of duty in Viet Nam, I started full time work as a Draftsman, quickly promoted to Project Engineer on a project that included: casting, rolling, forming, electron beam welding and stretch reduction of DHP (CDA 122) copper from a 5" x 1/2" strip to a 1-1/4" OD x .035" wall tube. I became the leader of the project when I proposed bold changes to the caster with my own designs. I used the properties of "Bucky Balls" before they were named in an ablative coating for casting smooth surfaces. Read more here.
In addition to the responsibilities of a Sales Engineer and Product Manager, on my own initiative, I purchased, built and programmed a personal computer to price the product I was selling. The program was immediately accepted and used. Here is an account of my activities with a computer that was accepted into the collection of the Computer History Museum.
The metal ranges I have worked within are as follows: 22 alloys - 15 in the copper base group and 7 in the aluminum base group, size range from 3” O.D. X .625" wall down to .010” O.D. X .001" wall. I have extensive experience in temper development utilizing penultimate properties and stress relief anneals of the CU base and cold drawing/ solution heat treatment of the Aluminum base tubes. I have developed shaped tubing with precision temper and size tolerances. Much of the work I have done has been “hands on” in development , working out a process or procedure that can be documented and followed by operators. I have designed and built the machine tools to manufacture the product ,which to my mind, requires a fundamental understanding of the process, tool builders are not just tool users. I am self taught in mechanical & metallurgical engineering to the point where I was a trouble shooter for the most difficult products and interfaced with the engineers, scientists and researchers of our customers.
I have operated the testing equipment associated with tube drawing: tensile testing (including 2% offset yield measurement), Rockwell hardness, eddy current, ultrasonic, and various tools of measurement. I have done wet chemistry analysis of trace elements. I have done fractographic analysis including the use of a scanning electron microscope.
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