The table is equipped with longitudinal- and cross-feed stops, the handles for which are shown at E, which positively locate the worktable under the drill spindle for each of the several drilling and reaming operations. The table also has adjustable positive stops for locating for the side milling operation, the handles for which are shown at G. There are nine different side milling cuts on the upper half of the work. These cuts are made with a 5/8-inch diameter end-mill revolving at 1800 R.P.M. The total floor-to-floor time for the complete machining of this half of the work is approximately twentyeight minutes, a noteworthy saving of time, compared with passing the work from one type of machine to another.

In Figs. 3 and 4 is shown a companion machine to the one illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2, which was developed and built to machine the other side of the same magnesium alloy casting. This machine performs surface milling, boring, drilling, reaming, and counterboring operations. It has a multiple drill head at H for drilling six holes simultaneously, the table being automatically located in line with the drills. The table of the machine also locates itself automatically in the proper position for the boring of a 2.687inch diameter hole, as indicated at I. The boring-bar travels at 1200 R.P.M., and is provided with a single fly cutter. The bar is piloted in a bushing below the work. The machine is also equipped with a profiling cam follower for machining the surface J, Fig. 4. The same endThe same endmill used for machining this surface mills fourteen other elevations on this side of the work. Each elevation is determined by a height gage pin K, and is indicated on an electrical control board located on the turret arm.

The floor-to-floor time for fully machining this side of the work is approximately thirty minutes; thus the total floor-to-floor time for both sides is fifty-eight minutes, involving a saving of many hours, compared with machining the casting by passing it from one machine

to another.

In the operation of these machines, it was noted that girls, inexperienced in the use of machines, after a short period of training, proved the fastest and most reliable operators.

Meeting of New York Chapter of American Society of Tool Engineers The Greater New York Chapter of the American Society of Tool Engineers will meet on November 5 at 8 P.M. in the North Ball Room of the Hotel New Yorker. During the technical session, Edwin Weiss, chief engineer of the Mil

"Modern Methods of Metal Spinning."

Re-Employment of Veterans

Since there is a great deal of uncertainty as to the exact requirements of the law with regard to the re-employment of returning veterans, the Information Service of the Selective Service System has issued several statements clarifying important points.

It is emphasized that the law provides that the veteran is entitled to reinstatement in the job he left to enter service or in one of like seniority, status, and pay, if the position was with a private employer or the Federal government, its territories or possessions, or the District of Columbia; if the position was other than temporary; if the veteran applies for reinstatement within ninety days after separation and has a certificate of "satisfactory completion of his training and service"; and if the circumstances of the employer (if a private employer) "have not so changed as to make it unreasonable or impossible" to restore him to the job.

After he is restored to the position, the veteran may not be discharged without cause within a year. In addition, he is entitled to restoration without loss of seniority and shall be considered as having been on furlough or leave of absence during his period of service. He also is entitled to participate in insurance or other benefits "offered by the employer pursuant to established rules and practices relating to employes on furlough or leave of absence in effect with the employer at the time such person entered military or naval service."

The question is often raised: What should an employer do in case the position formerly held by the returning veteran is now filled satisfactorily by someone else? Is he obliged to discharge the more recent employe? According to a statement made by the Selective Service System, this may become necessary, because the clause relating to the reinstatement of veterans applies only to the employer and "consequences to third parties are not involved." The clause "cannot be applied to cover the effect of restoration of the veteran on persons such as other employes."

Another interpretation reads: "When two or more veterans with restoration rights had, as an element of their former positions, the same job assignment, the right of each veteran to be retained in that job assignment is subject to the right of the other veterans who before entering active military service were prior holders of that job assignment."

These Selective Service statements are included in a new handbook containing re-employment provisions of the Selective Training and Service Act. This handbook can be obtained from the National Headquarters of the Selective

Service System, 21st and C Sts., N.W., Wash

ington 25, D. C.

S

TACK-CUTTING with an oxy-acetylene flame-cutting machine often shows an impressive saving in production time and cost compared with the use of dies for stamping out similar shapes on a press. Successful machine cutting of stacked sheets is largely dependent upon the care used in preparing and setting up the work. It is especially essential that the sheets be held tightly together along the lines of the cuts to be made.

In the plant of the Wellman Engineering Co., Cleveland, Ohio, where the production of special shapes in large quantities from thin steel sheets is speeded up by stack-cutting with an Airco No. 30 Travograph flame-cutting machine, special clamps that are designed to maintain pressure in all areas adjacent to the cut lines are used in some cases. For many shapes, however, it has been found that a more flexible and convenient method is to use heavy bolts instead of clamps.

A stack of sheets that has been set up by the use of bolts for simultaneous flame-cutting is

shown in Fig. 1. This stack comprises twenty pieces of 1/8-inch thick low-carbon steel topped by a "waste" plate 3/16 inch thick. The waste plate prevents the preheating flame from overmelting the edges of the sheets nearest the top. After the stack of sheets is squared up and clamped tightly together, the arc-welding process is used to run a series of light beads vertically across the edges of the sheets, all around the stack, at intervals of about 4 inches, as seen in the illustration. This serves the purpose of holding the sheets in position until the flame cuts have been made. A master templet the exact shape of the pieces to be cut is then placed on the stack and holes to be drilled for the fastening bolts are laid out. Then, the bolt holes are drilled and the stack of sheets is bolted tightly together.

The master templet is seen in place in Fig. 1. Before flame-cutting is started, the operator moves the torch head over all the cutting lines of the templet to make certain that nothing will interfere with the progress of the operation

after it has been once started. The path of the various cuts is controlled by the contact of a magnetic wheel with the templet seen in Fig. 2. This templet is mounted on a movable table top actuated by a handwheel, so that the templet can be accurately lined up with the sheets.

In the case illustrated, the first cuts made are at the ends of the sheets. One of these cuts is seen in progress in Fig. 3. After all the cuts that can be started from the edges of the stack have been finished, the interior cuts are made. In making any one of the interior cuts, a bolt is removed to provide a starting point for the flame. It will be noted that the bolts are spaced so as to prevent any separation of the sheets as the cuts are made.

All cuts on the sheets are seen completed in Fig. 4. When the bolts are removed, it is a very easy matter to separate the sheets. If proper care has been taken to prevent any separation during the cutting period, the pieces will be uniform in size and the edges of the sheets will be as smooth as shear cuts.

The rough sketch seen on the triangular waste segment at the left end of the stack is an indication that this piece, which otherwise might be wasted, will be used in cutting out another shape for which templets have been prepared. The racks seen in the background of Fig. 1, contain many templets for small parts that are needed

from time to time. It is possible to salvage a great deal of scrap in stack-cutting by using the left-over material for the production of these miscellaneous small parts. With the sheet material already stacked on the table and fastened, and templets right beside the machine, it takes only a few minutes to get started on a small part after finishing an operation on larger pieces.

The flame-cutting machine department is located on the third floor of the Wellman plant. Oxygen is supplied from a bulk oxygen trailer to a central control manifold in the control room on the first floor and then conducted by pipe line to the third floor. The fuel gas is compressed acetylene supplied from cylinders.

War Production Board Specialists
Available to Private Industry

Specialists in the machinery field who have been serving the War Production Board are now available to private industry. The end of the war has terminated many of the board's activities and thus made possible the release of these specialists. Employers desiring to interview machinery specialists may do so by writing to the Regional Director, War Production Board, Empire State Bldg., New York 1, N. Y.

W

HAT are the practical implications of the term "neuropsychiatric," which has been applied to so many discharged veterans? In order to answer this question, I am expressing the following opinions as one of three psychiatrists to whom has been posed the very important problem of the effect on industry of releasing into civilian pursuits supposedly vast numbers of neuropsychiatric cases discharged from the armed forces.

We have been requested to make suggestions concerning what should be done with the socalled neuropsychiatric dischargees whom industry is expected to employ or re-employ. It has been assumed that this problem is one separate and distinct from all other problems concerning post-war industry. I am happy to be able to report that, as a result of an extensive survey of various industrial organizations, this problem is not as serious as the layman may have imagined.

By way of introduction, perhaps it would be well to state that the term "psychoneurosis" does not designate a disease in the sense that pneumonia, typhoid, and malaria do. The term "psychoneurotic" is more of a social diagnosis. It affects the individual relationship of all people to other people in their homes, in their employment, and in their social environment. A psychoneurotic requires an adjustment, as an individual, to his environment and occupation. Briefly, psychoneurosis may be defined as an emotional upset developed to the point where it interferes with the individual's efforts in his employment or with his domestic life or social relationships. Everyone, at one time or another, and in varying degree, exhibits such symptoms. Obviously, the adjustment to military life for a man established in peaceful pursuits and relationships greatly affects his emotional life. If he fails in any of the required adjustments, he is discharged as a psychoneurotic. In civilian life, the same man might make a very satisfactory adjustment to his employment relationship and be an extremely valuable employe. The effort to make the necessary adjustments to military life may have caused increased irritability, seeming indifference, or other traits

indicating a lack of the usual sustained and normal interests. These symptoms tend to disappear more or less automatically as the individual's war experience recedes in point of time.

Abnormal sensitivity to sound and an abnormal acuteness of hearing frequently call for special consideration. Again these symptoms are transitory, and need not become the basis of any permanent difficulty in connection with peacetime employment.

The sum and substance of all this is that we need pay little or no attention to whether or not a man was discharged from the armed forces as a psychoneurotic. This term, as a basis for discharge from the armed forces, amounts to nothing more than saying that he did not have the personal traits that enabled him to become a satisfactory member of the armed forces. The inability of a man to adjust himself to military life and conditions does not imply inability to make a satisfactory adjustment to industrial or business occupations. Unfortunately, the term "psychoneurotic," which has been used as a label for this entire group, has been greatly misunderstood by manufacturers and others in civilian life.

Throughout industry there are thousands of psychoneurotic people being successfully employed. In the past, it may have been found that they were not suited to some particular job, but were quite satisfactory in another position. They were never ruled out as undesirable for employment. There is no more reason to look upon the discharged veteran in that light. If emotionally upset through his war service, the return to normal conditions will soon restore him to his normal frame of mind.

I could dwell at length upon the observations upon which these conclusions are based, but one reference will be sufficient. In one large plant, employing tens of thousands of men, returned veterans are being hired without regard to the circumstances surrounding their discharge from the armed forces; the sole basis for employment is the veteran's past training and skill. No attention whatever, is paid to whether he was discharged as a psychoneurotic.