Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[baconsdozen]

We've all heard about sending apprentices for sky hooks or long waits (weights). Anyone else got any tales.
Many,many moons ago I watched an old boy looking for the reason that an old ford was misfiring.He touched the top of each plug in turn (the old screw on metal plug caps) until he came to number four. "No spark" he announced and the dizzy cap was found to have a segment broken off inside.
I asked how he could do that without getting a shock and he told me to try with my hand in my pocket so the current bypassed my body . I did and got a pretty severe shock. He then suggested I try standing on one leg,then on tip toe and so on. Every time I received a painful shock.
Finally with a rather sore arm I gave up. He then told me that a long while before he'd received a massive shock when working on a generator in a factory. After that he could feel only just a shock from an HT system but it didn't bother him. He explained that he thought I'd been quite rude in the way I'd asked him and thought he'd treat me a lesson about being big headed.
Thinking about it I realised he was right,I was a bit too cheeky,I'd dismissed him as a bit of an old duffer but he certainly had the last laugh.
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Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).

[JohnDale]

My Uncle Harold used to hold the same type plug top & put his other hand on the wing while I was leaning on the grill watching him(learning I thought) where I would get the shock. He caught me a few times before I twigged - well I was young then,cheers,JD.
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1958 Ford Zephyr Mk2 Convertible
1976 Ford Granada Ghia.

[peter scott]

Doing some workshop training as a teenager the lathes had a large sheet of aluminium up the back. If working on some fine tolerance turning it wasn't unusual for some kind "mate" to sneak up behind and wallop the aluminium sheet with a mallet! Not nice!.

Another bang in the workshop was making cannons. Drill down the centre of a bar then take the tail stock off the lathe and stuff the bar with match heads then push the drill, chuck end first, in next and hit it sharply with a mallet. The drill would be fired across the workshop with lethal force. Fortunately nobody got killed.

In the more sedate environs of the drawing office I can recall tales of a neophite who didn't pay attention to the scale factor of a small part he was drawing and the machine shop for a laugh just made it as per the drawing. When the much larger than life part was returned it caused much laughter and not a little embarrassment.

Working back then for a firm with an Italian name (Ferranti) I didn't instantly realise that a Gizinti wasn't the manufacturer's name for a type of electrical part.

Who's going to be first with the description of a Gizinti?

Peter

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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Rick]

[peter scott]

Yes, a big employer back in the 50s and 60s...

..but what about Gizinti?

Peter
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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Roger-hatchy]

North of the border speak

Opposite of a gizouti,

[ukdave2002]

[peter scott]

[BigJohn]

I had an apprentice who was a right little sod, you crossed him at your peril. He once picked the lock of a rivals toolbox (an old ammo case) fitted a seal to the lid and relocked it. He then fitted a grease nipple to the back, and hooked up our air powered greaser, when the padlock was unlocked......
He tacked welded the toes of another fitters boots to the bottom of a workbench.
Drilled another fitters enamel mug and bolted it to a bench using O rings as seals, then filled it with tea.
We worked nights and one of the labourers used to bunk off to sleep, this used to cost us time, and that was money (I gave him £5-£10 a week out of my bonus, this was 1976, he was 19, I was just out of my time and 20) He found the large packing case where the labourers nest was and started firing 1/2" bolts through it with an air powered bolt gun he had made.
I joined the Police a year later, and his Dad was a Police Sgt!

[V8 Nutter]

One apprentice where I worked went on nights for a time. The old hands would go to sleep for an hour at break time, he would wake them up with stupid questions, such as "Do you want to buy a battle ship"

One morning they stopped behind, they grabbed him secured the sleeves of his jacket in two vices so he couldn't move. They then dropped his jeans and covered his bits with engineers blue. To make things worse the bench they used was just by the entrance to the offices where all the young girls worked it was months before the girls stopped laughing at him.

[JC T ONE]

Some great stories there here is one more.

Talking of checking the spark, we had a yonger apprentice, he was very smart & big in his mouth,
he was also VERY afraid of the spark from a plug lead,
so the older mechanic told him to take a hammer, and fit nails into his clogs =
that would make the spark go right through him - into the floor, without he felt a thing
he was very crossed, when he learned the hard way

He also frequntly ended in our big tub, with disolvent for engine parts .
Imagine doing that today , the union would close the garage in a heartbeat


Jens Christian
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http://www.eurods.eu/wp/index.html

[MVPeters]

..but what about Gizinti?

A close relation of a guzunder?
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Mike - MVPeters at comcast.net
2002 MINI Cooper 'S'

[peter scott]

Ferranti developed quite a few radar systems and a significant part being the powerful magnet from a magnetron.

Another apprentice trick was to place a magnetron magnet on the apprentice's bench with a shallow tin full of water magnetically stuck the under side.

The rest is obvious..

Peter
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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Keith D]

I was a first year apprentice at Ekco in 1960 and Vic, the charge hand, sent me to the stores for a gross of 5/16" holes! Idiot here went to Bob the storeman and I repeated what I had been told to get. Bob stood and smiled at me for about ten seconds until the penny dropped and I blushed bright red!

But Bob was a good bloke. He handed me a box of 5/16" washers and told me to tell Vic that he had no holes on their own, so Vic would have to machine the steel off! The reception that was waiting for me back in the workshop laughed, but at Vic and not me! Happy days!

And, incidentally, if my memory serves me correctly, Ferranti ended up in the Ekco empire. We certainly used to make Ferranti televisions.

Keith.

[emmerson]

This is a bit of a saga, but I'll shorten it as much as possible.
Time, around 1960, I was senior apprentice. We had a huge fleet of Morris 1000s, and used to decoke and re-ring them at around 30,000 miles. We got quite good at it, and comfortably did them in a day, for which we got good bonus.
Anyway, myself and my apprentice had one almost complete, well inside the time allowed. It only needed a tappet check and it was ready to start, when I was called away for tea. The apprentices weren't allowed an afternoon tea break, so I left him cleaning tools etc. When I got back the engine was running, but lumpy. "Who told you to start it?" I yelled. Boy mumbled something. I clipped him round the ear, and told him that he'd now dropped the tappet clearance in the sump. At that point, I was called off the job to attend a breakdown. When I got back an hour later, the boy had the car jacked up, and the sump on the floor, looking for the tappet clearances!
I didn't get bonus on that job, and I'm not really sure wether the boy was trying to help, or taking the p*ss! Unless he reads this, I guess I'll never know now!