Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

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Gary Brantley
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Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by Gary Brantley »

My friends, I worked at Milam Sheet Metal for 13 years. I started out as a true newbie and learned all I know from two great tinsmiths/sheet metal mechanics; Mr. Milush "Milton" Valka and Charles Moraw, who bought the shop from Valka.

We did a wide variety of work; from making Christmas cookie-cutters, to fabricating and installing all the ductwork in a huge supermarket. We put on hand-formed, on the job site, standing seam galvanized roofs using methods and tools that were unchanged over hundreds of years. We hung galvanized gutters with each joint soldered and still made stove pipes and double-flues for wood stoves. As the only sheet metal shop around, we did just about everything one could with sheet metal and many custom, one-off projects. It was interesting work most days. One of the toughest jobs was building sheet metal water cisterns. We built them upon orders and it took Charles and I a full day to turn out a 6' tall x 6' wide, two ring cistern. I built several myself with the assistance of a helper. Back in the day, I had forearms like Popeye! :lol:

Some of our tools had patent dates from the late 19th Century. We heated the shop with a 3' woodstove and cooled it with a few fans blowing that hot Texas air. Roof and attics got mighty damned hot and there were days when I was too tired to eat lunch, instead laying down for a rest before tackling them again and I was in my natural prime then and much of a man in those days.

I thought some members might enjoy seeing some scanned photos from "back in the day". I learned so much but I made little money in our small town. But the experience and knowledge was compensation in their own way.

Some inside shots of our shop:

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A new cistern, just finished:

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A huge 8' cistern with 3 rings (36" each). We had to assemble it outside since it was too tall for the shop ceiling. I'm on the far right in ths pic, my boss Charles stands in the middle and our helper Derek on the left:

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Derek painting the inside of that cistern with a tar-like coating:

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Yours truly spraying duct liner adhesive on duct work for a Safeway supermarket in which we installed all the ductwork. It was our biggest job ever and Charles hired two other helpers for it:

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The Cameron cotton compress had a building done that connected two existing other buildings. We installed wide galvanized valleys at the connecting points. I soldered all of those joints with Derek tending my soldering coppers. Here's the framework:

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In this shot , you can see our propane burner for heating those big copper soldering irons:

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We also installed panel metal roofs as well as fabricating standing seam styles. This is one of our roofs on top of a building in Rosebud, Texas. We did it in the middle of summer and started work before the sun came up, having to get off the very hot metal by early afternoon. I recall that we could see the Rosebud bank's sign with the temperature readout from that roof. We would watch the number going steadily up to 100*F +. Hot days for sure!

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Charles Moraw can be seen soldering joints in the far corner:

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Charles was a very devout Catholic and he was asked to build a copper-clad cross for our local hospital, owned at the time by the Catholic Church. Both my children were born there. We subbed out the angle-iron frame work and then covered it in copper sheet. The hospital changed hands several times over the ensuing years and the cross was removed. It has now been reinstalled at the Church cemetery here in Cameron. Here's a photo taken for the local newspaper, with Charles and I standing by our creation:

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And just for grins, here I am playing the fool for a photographer friend of mine, circa 1978:

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Last edited by Gary Brantley on Thu Jul 01, 2021 5:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Stikpusher
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by Stikpusher »

That’s a few levels above what we did in high school metal shop…. :giggles:
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LyleW
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by LyleW »

That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
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Gary Brantley
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

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Stikpusher wrote:That’s a few levels above what we did in high school metal shop…. :giggles:
:lol: True for me too Carlos. In Australia, in form 2 (8th grade here), we had metal-shop every Friday morning for about three hours. Our instructor was a nice man and put up with a lot of rowdy boys. One of our projects was to make a shoe-horn, or as they called it, a shoe-spoon. When I was nearly finished with mine, I took it over to the bench grinders/polishing wheels. I was working that spoon around that buffer wheel and that sucker got hot, so I held it with the bottom of my shop apron. Of course, as 8th grade boys tend to do everywhere, I was goofing with mates around the room and wasn't really paying attention to the buffer. Until it grabbed that apron. It ripped the apron off my neck and slung that shoehorn clear across the room which had walls of glass windows on each side. BANG! It sounded like a pistol shot when it hit that glass and the apron was spinning around and around that buffer wheel, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP...

Our teacher came running out of his office, making the slash across the throat sign to turn it off while I stood there like a complete dumb*ss. All the other boys were laughing and so was I by then. Teacher asks me, "Haven't I warned you boys not to hold your work with a cloth?" Yes sir. "Well mate?" I know he was mad but nobody was injured thankfully and he started to grin. It most likely wasn't the first time that had happened... :wink:

Thanks for the response Carlos! :grin:
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Gary Brantley
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by Gary Brantley »

LyleW wrote:That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Lyle, you're welcome and I appreciate your comments! :grin:
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by Stuart »

That's very cool Gary!

Some pretty interesting stuff you guys were doing, a fair bit more advanced that the aircraft re-skinning I've done.
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Gary Brantley
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by Gary Brantley »

Thank you Stuart! I would love to hear more about that aircraft re-skinning. Did you work long in that field?
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by jeaton01 »

Ah, loose clothing around turning machinery. The stuff of nightmares!
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Gary Brantley
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by Gary Brantley »

So true John! And that goes for long hair too. :wink: There are some real horror stories out there. A local man had his arm amputated by a piece of farm equipment about 40 years ago. I think the worst tales are those about people having to cut themselves free from the machine. If they could. :sad:
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Re: Milam Sheet Metal shop photos

Post by KSaarni »

Wouh, those are impressing pictures and a great story!


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