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Round 2 of Quincy Welding shop photos
Here's round 2 of the series of photos I am posting of Quincy Welding/ Precision Machine's interior, or "Area 51," as very few customers actually got to see the inside of the shop to this degree.
The 1st picture is mid shop, looking northeast at the larger bridgeport endmill that was used primarily for larger porting and machining projects & 6 cylinder Loopers. To the south of the bridgeport is the electrostatic crankshaft balancer. Many national championship engine crankshafts were balanced on this machine. We also used this machine to balance prop shafts with racing propellers on them.
The 2nd picture is of the boring room. This is where most of the Looper production engines were final bored. The final honing was done upstairs prior to final assembly (pictures from upstairs will be in series 3).
The 3rd picture is from the central far eastern part of the shop and is of the belt sanders and the propeller work area. Take note: Gene East spent a lot of time working in that area on props and grinding various projects. East performed well in the east.
The 4th picture is looking south to north, from the main State street vehicle entrance to the shop. My dad, O F Christner, is leaning on the shop truck, talking to his friend, Fred, that ran a business across the street. If you look towards the back, you can see a number of research Loopers on the back deck. As I discussed in the previous post on the shop, that area was off limits to almost everyone and could only be reached by a set of steps that had to be lowered (you can see them in the picture).
The 5th picture is looking towards the northeast part of the shop at the big southbend lathe and the machine we used to finish the Looper exhaust elbows. Notice the boxes on the back deck at the top of the photo? Those boxes contained many research blocks from the Mercury factory and some from other companies that we were doing covert R&D research for.
The last picture is also looking towards the northwest at the large bridgeport that was used for crankcase boring of the Loopers and the machine to the right of it was used for finishing the Looper blocks externally before the crankcases were finish bored.
Hope you enjoy this trip back in time. Stay tuned, more pictures to be posted soon as we head towards the inaugeral DePue Reunion at the end of July.
thanks,
Paul A Christner
Please note: these pictures are for your enjoyment and are not to be copied or posted to any other web site without my written permission.