What is the oddest machine you have worked on or operated

[JasperFrank]

For me this has to be the all time oddest. It was a 1958/62 Jari walk behind sickle bar mower. Running this was barely controlled chaos. And after 15 minutes you could not feel your hands any more.... It vibrated that much. And this ran at a speed that was faster than a walk, but just slower than a run. You jogged behind it. I can't remember how many times it got away from me under power, which wasn't a problem in my remote location to other people, but it would turn on a dime, on its own, and come back at you, like an evil being. It really needed a tether kill switch.

 

[MossRoad]

YIKES!

You could see his arms shaking as soon as he started it, then off for a run he went.

 

[USMC43]

For me this has to be the all time oddest. It was a 1958/62 Jari walk behind sickle bar mower. Running this was barely controlled chaos. And after 15 minutes you could not feel your hands any more.... It vibrated that much. And this ran at a speed that was faster than a walk, but just slower than a run. You jogged behind it. I can't remember how many times it got away from me under power, which wasn't a problem in my remote location to other people, but it would turn on a dime, on its own, and come back at you, like an evil being. It really needed a tether kill switch.

I have not run a jari but I have owned a troybilt and a gravely walk behind sickle bar mower. I don't recall the troybilt manual but the gravely(as well as the BCS tractors) cautions not to operate it above 1/2 throttle. The troybilt (dad has it now) I didnt run full throttle either. If you do it feels like the whole machine is going to come apart and a gravely is probably 300 lbs heavier than the jari.

The jari would have been much better with a bigger engine running partial throttle I imagine but that would have cost more money.

 

[caver]

Probably a little like this picture below. I think ours was 40-60' long. Inside were cradles that rode like a ferris wheel chair unspooling wire through guides where down at the end it rotated into a die forming a parking brake cable conduit.
Much like wire rope but ours had a plastic tube liner in the center that the actual parking brake cable would pass though. This was Orscheln Industries. It worked fine and I never recall having to work on it.

 

[dodge man]

Kind of small but a sewer smoke blower. The attached pic is what they look like new. Ours at work was probably built in the 1970’s. It’s one of those machines that had virtually no maintenance but still always ran. I changed the oil in it a couple of times over the years. It’s basically a 3.5 hp Briggs engine hooked to a good sized furnace squirrel cage blower. You set it over a sanitary sewer, set a smoke bomb near the air inlet so it pull the smoke in. Then you walk around a look to see where the smoke comes out.

It normally comes out of the plumbing vents of houses and other manholes but sometimes you find it coming out of places it shouldn’t. I did quite a bit of smoke testing over the years and never did really like it but we often found a lot of problems.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

I'm used to the more basic Unimog, but this MB4/94 was quite a bit different.
There was even a cheat sheet on the engine cover for how to operate the multiple shifters, and in what order they had to be moved to access the three gearing ranges. I addition to the normal 4-speed, that is.

If nothing else, there physically wasn't room for one more lever between the seats. It was eight total as I recall.

Of course, I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a tunnel washer before buying this one. And to operate the washing portion and sprayers was a whole other experience.

 

[Dennis Mohn]

I'm used to the more basic Unimog, but this MB4/94 was quite a bit different.
There was even a cheat sheet on the engine cover for how to operate the multiple shifters, and in what order they had to be moved to access the three gearing ranges. I addition to the normal 4-speed, that is.

If nothing else, there physically wasn't room for one more lever between the seats. It was eight total as I recall.

Of course, I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a tunnel washer before buying this one. And to operate the washing portion and sprayers was a whole other experience.View attachment 852681

I operated a Unimog while in the C.Bs . They are a different beast and with all the different designs they can be a challenge to operate Unimog is a platform prime mover Nice

 

[Norm W]

I worked in a mattress factory for a while. It was an education. I was fixing everything from sewing machines and surgers to quilters, fork lifts and tractor trailers. The ones that I hated to work on were quilters. They take two pieces of fabric about 7 feet across, merge stuffing between them and sew a pattern across the whole width for as long as the rolls of material. They are what puts together the top and sides of mattresses. What I hated was the cutters. They are spinning discs that are razor sharp, that cut the quilt into strips. It doesn't take too many cuts to you body to give you a healthy respect for and a searing hate for those machines.

 

[kminnick]

I'm used to the more basic Unimog, but this MB4/94 was quite a bit different.
There was even a cheat sheet on the engine cover for how to operate the multiple shifters, and in what order they had to be moved to access the three gearing ranges. I addition to the normal 4-speed, that is.

If nothing else, there physically wasn't room for one more lever between the seats. It was eight total as I recall.

Of course, I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a tunnel washer before buying this one. And to operate the washing portion and sprayers was a whole other experience.View attachment 852681

I've had 2 of the UniMog 404's (still have one). Remind me of all the attachments that people made for the early Land Rovers!

 

[Too many Kubotas]

There were quite a few attachments available for early Jeeps. Unfortunately they seem to have gone extinct, and the few remaining ones are pricey.

 

[BravoXray]

Back in the 70s, working for the family construction company, I ran a small asphalt paver for a day, and on several occasions operated a Marion 1 yard dragline digging a pond. I also operated S7 Euclid, International E211 and E270 earthmovers as well as TD9, TD15, TD20 and TD24 dozers.

 

[MossRoad]

I'd like to get into a dragline for a couple days. I was fascinated with them as a kid.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Back in 1967, when I was a lineman for the old Bell System, I used one of these vibratory plows.

I was assigned to install underground TV cable at a golf course, in advance of a major tournament.
The one shown above is a newer version of the one I used, but the machine was amazing.

This technology is commonplace now but back then, it was fairly new. Golf course management was concerned about surface damage but when I was finished, you could hardly tell where the underground cable had been installed.

 

[1Mech]

For me this has to be the all time oddest. It was a 1958/62 Jari walk behind sickle bar mower. Running this was barely controlled chaos. And after 15 minutes you could not feel your hands any more.... It vibrated that much. And this ran at a speed that was faster than a walk, but just slower than a run. You jogged behind it. I can't remember how many times it got away from me under power, which wasn't a problem in my remote location to other people, but it would turn on a dime, on its own, and come back at you, like an evil being. It really needed a tether kill switch.

We had one of those on the farm back in Minnesota when I was in my teens. Ours was a little newer than that, but not by much. As I recall, it had a Lauson engine on it, not the Briggs. Also had a larger shroud over the moving parts.

 

[ArlyA]

I was working at a weld shop located in the Powder basin in Wyoming when a Explosives Blend truck showed up and need repairs. The OX tank had devolved cracks which I welded up. These work at mines and dump explosives into blast holes.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

How are reverse currents avoided when those two generators have a marginal difference in output voltage, or when a generator is varying against the net?

Reverse currents aren't generally an issue as the governor immediately brings the output up to around 4MW upon the closure of the generator breaker when syncing to the grid. The governor also controls the voltage regulation treating both sides as a single unit. I don't recall the outputs varying between the two sides but it's been several years now since I've had to deal with it. There aren't many of those out there, I've run into only two in the last 40 years.

 

[jjeff]

Diesel powered jumping jack compactor.

 

[orezok]

Diesel powered jumping jack compactor.

Are you talking about one of these Widow Makers? Got it down in a trench and it’ll turn you into mush.

 

[jjeff]

Are you talking about one of these Widow Makers? Got it down in a trench and it’ll turn you into mush.

View attachment 853574

Something like this thing, what that made it odd to me was it ran off jp8. It was very heavy, even with a decompression valve hard starting, and you didn't want it getting away from you in a trench.

 

[1Mech]

I'll bet I have one that nobody else does. My first job out of college was in a foundry in the QC dept. testing iron samples, from there they put me in charge of the furnace dept. 22yrs old, one year out of college with 3 old timers working for me, and I'm responsible for two arc melt furnaces that could each melt 15 tons of iron. they had 3 x9" carbon arc rods in 5 ft. sections that screwed together. They ran on 100,000 volt DC current and iron would be heated to 2700-3000*F depending on type of iron needed. Thank God for those old timers and I made sure they knew I appreciated them, because they we're the only way I was successful in that job.
The other cool thing was I occasionally got to run overhead cranes, one was a 15 ton with a 5 ton electro magnet that was used for making up the scrap iron charges that went into the furnaces. Once I got good on that one several times I ran the big 40 ton in the main bay, control cab 35ft in air, even poured iron into molds several times.

Speaking of large overhead cranes, my first job in a machine shop was to assemble the gearing/hoist assembly on a large (30 ton?) overhead crane. The mechanic who took it apart had cleaned it all up, piled it all onto a good-sized pallet and quit working there. Had no book or instructions of any kind, just found what fit where and put it together. It even worked when I was done.