Hearing
this song, written when Mr. Stevens was 18 years old, takes me to a specific
place and time: Accutronics in my first
month there, January 1974. I had been hired to be a shear operator for the
grand salary of $2.65/hour. The normal start rate was $2.30/hour, but I was a
college student so they thought I might have some smarts.
The main
job of the shear operator was shearing, obviously, though I was also required
to unload skids of laminate, the copper covered material that’s the basis of
all printed circuit boards, and load and unload 55 gallon drums of ferric
chloride, the acid used to etch copper from the laminate to create the circuit
traces on the boards.
What the
job entailed was taking large sheets of laminate, ranging from 36”x48”, up to
36”x72” and cutting them into smaller process panels (12x16, 14x18, etc.) to be
imaged, etched, and punched. The material of choice in 1974, for most of the
boards we built, was a laminate called XXXP, which was paper/phenolic based. It
needed 10-15 seconds under a quartz heater lamp before shearing.
My very
first day, the supervisor put me on a smaller, manual shear, to shear some process
panels into strips for the punch press operator to feed into the die. He just
showed me where to shear and left me alone to shear panel after panel. Each
time I’d step on the lever the blade would come down and make a crackling
“zzzzip!”, and the strip would fall into a wooden box on the other side. It was
my first 10 minutes in the shop; I thought it was supposed to sound like that.
The
material was manufactured by Dynamit Nobel and was the most brittle and
dangerous material around then (dangerous because if you didn’t heat it enough
the shear would fracture it into razor sharp edges. I brushed up against a
stack with my hand once and was shocked when I saw about 10 cuts on my knuckles
that bled like a stuck pig)
Then, a
roving inspector, a wonderful lady named Henrietta, came by to check on me and
said, “You’re not heating these up. The shear is fracturing every piece!” I
looked down at the pile of cracked strips and said,”No one said anything about
heating them!” She went off to get the supervisor, who then showed me the
heater box you were supposed to use to heat up the panels, and on I went.
On the power
shear, the one I was hired to run, we had a quartz lamp that hung perpendicular
from the wall, and was adjustable in height. You would look at the shear order,
set the shear bar to the required width with a crank that moved it, and then
manually set the back gage to the size of the final cut, usually the same
distance. (A six foot sheet would typically have 4 – 18” cuts in its length,
and 3- 12” cuts in its width).
At the time
I worked it, it was a two man operation. I would heat each of the 3 cut areas, and
then feed it through the shear to a guy on the other side who would grab it and
hold it against the bar on his side, I’d step on the pedal and the motor would
drive the blade through the material, making a clean cut. I’d push it through
again for a second, and then a third cut, then pull it back against the bar
gage on my side making the final cut. All within about 10 seconds, so the
material would not cool and fracture.
Many of the
jobs at Accutronics back then required two people, one to feed, the other to
catch. This changed as time went on and automation came in (Today, almost all
laminate comes pre-cut from the vendor). Nowadays most processes have a machine
to feed the boards and an accumulator at the other end to catch and stack them.
You just need a person to set up the line itself and it runs on its own.
However,
the labor intensive nature of the jobs back then caused you to have to make
conversation with your partner. Usually, I had a radio playing (as did a lot of
other people) and you’d talk about music or have trivia contests. Anything to
pass the time.
One day
they had this sort of biker dude work with me. I was 19, naïve, a little scared
of the guy in T-shirt and engineer boots. I wore, and wear to this day, button
down shirts and either Converse suede One-Stars, Red Wings, or desert boots.
Steve B. (the
biker dude) and I sheared away and then the Tremeloes’ version of this song
came on. “I like this song,” said Steve. “You know who wrote that?” I asked,
starting a trivia contest. After several guesses I told him, “Cat Stevens.”
“No!” “Yeah, when he was about 18” “I never knew.” And I went on to describe
Cat’s early pop star career, tuberculosis, and rebirth as sensitive
singer-songwriter in 1970. It was the beginning of a work friendship that
lasted until Steve left a year or so later.
Accutronics
in the 1974-1980 time period was a very fun and interesting place to work. Cary, Illinois, had a few businesses, but no
Mickey D’s or other fast food places. High school and college aged kids went
through Accu as a rite of passage almost, along with a group of bored
housewives and mothers who also passed through there.
Most of the
college aged kids stopped through on their way to something better, whether it was
college or a different job. Nobody planned on staying there forever, especially
me, but here it is 40 years later and I’m still in the biz.
But like I
said in “To Be What You Must…” (number 11), I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This song
also reminds me of another friend I made almost 20 years later, at Dynacircuits,
Oscar. S. They used to play music over the PA in the office. One day the
Tremeloes’ version came on and I asked Oscar, “Know who wrote this?” starting
up a little trivia quiz to pass the time.”No.””Cat Stevens!” “Who?” “Cat
Stevens!” “Never heard of him.”
It became a
running gag for years after with Oscar at the two other board shops we worked
together at. Some song would come on the radio, maybe AC/DC, I’d ask Oscar,
“Who wrote this?” he would reply, “Cat Stevens?” and laughter would ensue.
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