| John_g gave interesting facts on frame construction. Here's another way-out connection on truck frame hole-through. Before I retired and when A. O. Smith was yet making frames for Ford trucks (in Milwaukee), they encounter an environmental problem. It was seagulls from nearby Lake Michigan! (I worked about 1.5 blocks from this location.) The truck frames were welded together and the first primer applied by dipping, and then temporarily stored in large stacks outside. There would be at times thousands of frames, principally for the Ranger, stacked in the outside lot. The gulls liked to congregate in the air above these frames and crapped a lot. The topmost frames received the most poop bombs, but frames deeper in the stack were affected also depending on the wind. There were no little elves on the final production line to clean inspect and clean these frames. These frames, poop and all, continued through the finishing process which were dip and spray tanks including painting. The frames tended to hole out where the poop bombs had been. Those destructive bombs are acidic and could affect frames with the final paint as well. One solution that was tried was carbide cannons to scare away the birds.. As I drove past this lot going in to work, there would be load bangs at random locations in A. O. Smith's lot. Of course, this noise did not set well with a residential neighborhood that surrounded the plant. A. O. Smith did try to be a good neighbor and limit the time of the barage, but of course, the barage had to being soon after daylight, and there were 2nd and 3rd shift workers in the neighborhood who were trying to sleep. It was contentious solution. It was found that the gulls avoided perigine falcons and other birds of prey. (The piegon problem in downtown Milwaukee was eliminated by using falcons.) The final solution was A. O. Smith exiting the truck frame buiness. This business was sold to Tower Automotive and not long after that, frame making at this plant was consolidated with other facilites out of state and the Milwaukee plant shuttered. You might say that frame manufacture at this plant was "for the birds". |