New Machines in the Shop

By: Emily Wedeking




The Clarksville industrial arts classes have gotten new equipment in the shop this year. There are four new machines which are; the Edwards 40 ton ironworker, the Jet geared head bench lathe, and two new arc welders.

The Edwards 40 ton ironworker is used for cutting metal. It’s pretty much like a large pair of scissors that cuts metal. This will help the industrial arts program by making it easier for them to cut metal and for them to get more products out faster. They used to have to get the metal cut before it came, which took more time for it to get there. Now they can buy more metal and just cut it at the shop and use the leftover metal for other projects as well.

The Jet geared head bench is used to turn steel into smaller diameters. This will help the industrial arts program by making it easier to change steel diameters to the size needed to be used. They are using it now for a project of making the heads of a hammer, and they are planning on doing many more projects with this machine.

The two new arc welders are machines that are used to weld things together. They already have two welders, but getting these two will make production time faster and will allow more welders to work at the same time.

The machines will be used in almost all the industrial arts classes available at Clarksville. They will be used in manufacturing metals, welding, tech, woods, and any independent work class. When asked how these machines are a good investment for Clarksville school Mr. Longus, the industrial arts teacher, said, “ These machines are the same type of equipment as the students would see in a manufacturing setting, so if they go into the workforce they will already know how to run them. They are used at Hawkeye as well, so if they go there to continue their education then they would already know how to run the equipment and would be ahead in the class.”

The machines will improve production and make time to make a product a lot less than it was before. When asking Mr. Longus if there were any other machines that he thinks the school should invest in one came to mind. “Another machine that would be a good investment would be a large rapid prototyper. Mrs. Tiemessen has a small one, but for cad and metals it would work better to have a bigger one so we can see the product and then produce it.”