“We `sort of got donated’ government property? You’re sure it wasn’t stolen?”
“Stolen? Boss, you use such naughty words! How about `was put to da highest an da best civilian use’? Anyway, dose guys, dey owed me a couple of favors and dis was da payoff.”
I shook my head and went away with visions of prison dancing in my head.
FIVE
The crew only spent three weeks working on the boat that time, but during those weeks I spent very little on materials. Adam had been squirreling away all sorts of parts for use on the Brick Royal. Some—tubing, fittings, wiring and connectors—came out of our own bench stocks, and others—valves, motors, cylinders and drives—were identical to parts that had been shipped to our customers with the machines we built them. I expect that Adam designed the boat’s fittings around the parts he could scrounge. Then again, he might have designed our customer’s machines so they needed the same parts he wanted for the boat.
A big old marine diesel engine was being completely rebuilt in our shop, but that I understood. I’d managed to pick it up myself a few months ago, along with the transmission, shaft and packing box, all at scrap-metal prices.
But the radios, the radar, the satellite dish, the forward-looking sonar, the Global Positioning System, and the electronic navigating machine stumped me. I was afraid to ask, and put it off for a week, but eventually my curiosity got the best of me.
“Oh, dat stuff. Well, you see, boss, da guys over at Nautical Micrologic needed some material handlin’ stuff—just some conveyors an tings—and we needed some of deir stuff, so we made a deal. No big ting.”
“No big thing, is it? Well, where did the materials and labor for the conveyors come from?”
“It was dat Brazilian job again. I mean, we was way ahead on dat one, and it don’t look too good to da customer if you make too big a profit on dem. Dis way, everybody’s happy.”
“Everybody but me and the IRS.” I walked away, shaking my head as usual.
One thing I did pay for, and plenty, was the carbon fiber and epoxy needed for the mast. The cost of these materials was about the same as the price of a custom-made aluminum mast, but it would weigh almost half a ton less. Weight way up there you don’t need. Also, the composite mast would be a lot stronger. Too strong, as it turned out later. An aluminum mast might not have been strong enough to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat.
The Brick Royal was beginning to look almost finished when we started back on our next real job. The car companies were still a bit slow, but it was looking as though we had a first-class customer in a certain Brazilian auto aftermarket manufacturer.
The first machine that we did for them remachined used water pump housings. They were very pleased with what we designed and built, and they paid for it before the due date. Now they had another, much larger project for us if we could start immediately, and of course, we could.
The new job was a variable remachining line for engine camshafts that would take just about any used camshaft ever made and put it back to the original specs. You could throw in old parts in any order, and have them come out just like brand new, as long as the programmable controller was informed of the proper part number.
When the camshaft machine was about half completed, their rep came by and asked us to quote on five more lines, for engine blocks, engine heads, crankshafts, brake drums, and rotors. We got the crankshaft job within the week.
* * *
Most machinery companies end up spending between two weeks and two months debugging a tool before it’s fit to be seen in public. All of the sins of misinformation, improper assumptions, and outright incompetence come out in final assembly and debug.
It’s a trial, but it’s not like trying to convince a jury you didn’t break the laws of man. You’re on trial with Mother Nature herself sitting in judgment on whether you tried to break her very strict rules.
Rudyard Kipling had it down pat. Machines are not built to comprehend a lie. They can neither love, nor pity, nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling them, you die.
Or at the very least, you can lose your shirt. It’s the expenses that you incur during debugging that can make the difference between an almost embarrassingly high profit and a dead loss.
Indeed, my fledgling company had been forced to lose a few not-so-small fortunes, until I hired Adam. It was his fantastic record of ultrasmooth startups that made him so valuable to me. Before long, his startups made him and our company both famous throughout the machinery industry.
And whenever anyone asked him about it, he would invariably say, “Of course it woiks! I got God on my side!”
Super Spooks in the Sky had nothing to do with it. Machines designed and built by Adam always worked because he was incredibly competent. He was one of those rare individuals who was both remarkably creative and absolutely anal when it came to checking every single tiny detail.
As time went on, I got to scheduling less and less time for Tender Loving Care, at least on our own shop schedules, but being a chicken at heart, I left it at three weeks as far as what I told the customer was concerned, just in case.
There is a ceremony in the special machine business called “The Buyoff.” Representatives from the purchasing company, usually one senior plant engineer and a couple of juniors, come to the builder’s shop. They inspect the machine and the parts it makes, they watch it function, and they sometimes run it themselves while it produces a certain number of parts within a specified period of time. If all is well, they approve the machine for shipment and payment. If Mother Nature doesn’t accept excuses, neither does the purchaser’s plant engineer.
* * *
Only this time, the Brazilian company’s President, the Chairman of the Board and the Chief Engineer showed up, in addition to the usual plant engineers. And they came three weeks early. When the Brazilians arrived unannounced, and asked to see their machine immediately, I was a more than a bit flustered.
“Gentlemen! Of course, you may see anything that you wish. But surely you realize that you are here three weeks early.”
A very distinguished-looking gentleman, who turned out to be their Chairman of the Board, spoke through their interpreter. “Of course, we realize this, and it is not our intention to make you anxious. We are totally confident of your ability to ship us an outstanding machine at the proper time. However, we have come north from Bela Horizonte a few weeks early to see for ourselves the truth about the remarkable stories that circulate concerning your Chief Engineer.”
Omigod! I thought, Somebody’s told them about the shit Adam pulled, padding the account on that last machine we sold them! They know about The Brick Royal!
“My Chief Engineer? He’s extremely competent, sir, or, uh, señor, but of course, what a man does on his own time is none of my business, you see.”
The reply, after a few layers of translation, and a fair amount of extra conversation in Portuguese, came back, “I am not sure of what you speak, my friend, and perhaps it is best that I do not know. What I was discussing was his remarkable ability to design a totally new machine, build it, and have it work perfectly the very first time it was turned on. You will understand that you are not the first tool-building company that we have dealt with. Always before, they were months late in their deliveries, and never had we purchased a machine that worked to absolute perfection until we received your last excellent effort on our behalf. Therefore, we have come early in order to watch the machine being completed, and to observe the startup.”
Vastly relieved, I took the delegation back to the assembly bay, where the electricians and painters were putting on the finishing touches.
“Ah, it will be completed soon, yes?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Perhaps by noon today. We are slightly ahead of schedule.”
“Then we will watch.”
It wasn’t until one-thirty that Adam had finished his own final inspection of the line, and would permit electrical power, compressed air, and coolants to be turned on. With a bit of a flourish, he pressed the start button for the first time, and all of the proper indicator lights turned on.
Adam went over to a stack of old camshafts that we’d bought at the junkyard, selected one at random, and scanned its part number into the machine. He placed the camshaft on the input rack and pressed the palm buttons.