Shipping crate specification verification

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Tom Hicks
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Shipping crate specification verification

Post by Tom Hicks » Sat Jan 12, 2019 3:58 pm

Years ago when I was young an elderly neighbor told me about his father working in a Ford assembly plant. I don't know if it was a T or an A plant, or maybe he worked in both. The neighbor said that his father said that Ford required his suppliers to use certain types of wood cut to certain dimensions for shipping crates. Ford would then tear down the crates and reuse the wood in his cars.

I have not heard anything more about that from anyone else or on any forum. I guess maybe this was done a little, but I can't see it being done on a massive scale. Seems to me that used shipping crates would be broken down and sent back to the supplier for reuse sending another of the same item.

Has anyone read of Ford specifying shipping crate lumber type and dimension so he could use the wood in his cars?
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DanTreace
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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by DanTreace » Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:15 pm

Tom

That’s just a Ford myth :)

Lots of them, made an article printed in Model T Times 2 years ago about floorboards from packing crates.

That myth was even floating around newspapers (before Facebook!) and was refuted by Edsel Ford back in 1922!
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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by Kerry » Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:51 pm

Well there's a little truth in packing cases being used so anything could have grown form this,
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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by Adam » Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:45 am

A friend of mine has a very original low mile ‘23 touring, and there is a very clear stencil on a piece of wood on the underside of one of the floorboards that says “Simplex Mfg Co KC MO”... They are definitely original floorboards.

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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by DanTreace » Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:45 pm

Same here, the '24 has original boards, and are marked by the mfg. "Mengel Co. Louisville KY"

To show Ford used first class process to suppliers, each part of the floorboards are marked with factory # and a print of each part sent to the supplier, and this assembly print too. Some of those boards even stamped with the ref number too.

Ford had firm control on suppliers, for just in time delivery to each branch assembly plant....Ford, the largest auto maker had to use engineering controls for all parts to fit on the assembly line without delay. ;)
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Tom Hicks
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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by Tom Hicks » Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:07 pm

Apparently he did make charcoal form the wood waste at his sawmill.

Verticle integration?

"Ford sold more than one million Model T’s in 1919, and in each of those Model T’s was 100 feet of timber. Because of the amount of timber that had to be used in the cars, Ford decided he wanted to produce his own supply. "

https://knowledgestew.com/2016/10/henry ... rcoal.html
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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by Jeff Hood » Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:22 am

Had the floorboards out of my 25 coupe today. The two upper sections appear to be original and are most definitely made of scrap wood. In the two upper sections there are 8 pieces of wood dovetailed together and then the ends are dadoed and a piece of wood is inserted to keep the sticks stiff and straight. One piece is even tapered from about 3/4" to 1".

I seem to recall a couple of years ago a discussion on the forum about a wood shop in the factory where wood from packing crates was reused to make new packing crates etc. There was also a page from a book where Henry told of the recycling of wood and using a new machine that allowed them to join random scraps of wood into usable pieces. Looks like my floorboards are made that way.
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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by Roverdriver » Fri Jan 25, 2019 1:12 am

As I understand it, especially from reading 'My Life and Work' as well as 'The Great today and Greater Future', Henry hated waste. He even worked out ways to remove the spikes from railway sleepers (ties) to re-mill and use that timber.

Surely that would explain how and why floor boards were created from pre-used timber.

The Henry philosophy was that an investment of time and money was used to produce all things, therefore it was wasting money and effort to allow anything to go to waste if a way could be found to re-use. Strangely enough a "recycling" movement has grown in recent times, but that is, in reality, an old way of life.


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Re: Shipping crate specification verification

Post by TrentB » Sun Jan 27, 2019 9:22 pm

You might want to check out this article from a past issue of the Vintage Ford:

“The Use of Scrap in the Production of New Model T Parts,” The Vintage Ford, vol. 35 no. 1 (January-February 2000) pp. 26-29.

There were two main reasons that Ford decided to specify the sizes of the shipping crates for Model T parts. First, the shipping crates came in sizes that would hold a specified number of a particular part. This allowed Ford employees to quickly perform “Sight Inventories” of the parts. Since each crate held a known number of a part, counting the number of crates gave a quick and accurate answer to the question of how many of a certain part did they have on hand.

Second, empty crates were expected to be returned to the “home plant”. In use and reuse wood crates would become damaged and need repair. Having the crates coming in known sizes allowed Ford to stockpile spare parts for the crates so that damaged crates could be quickly repaired for reuse.

Respectfully Submitted,

Trent Boggess

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