I think it's a great film; fine art and an utterly fascinating glimpse into pre-WWII automotive manufacturing technology and the assembly line system as dance.
The work is either hard or tedious or both, the dangers real and immediate especially in the foundry and forging plant and on the chassis line. The degree of automated assembly on the chassis line I found quite surprising. There are safety interlocks on the big sheet metal presses -- it takes a man at each end of the press pushing a button to start the press cycle. But on the chassis line the machines move in their own inexorable rhythm and it's entirely up to the men to stay out of their way. There's little personal protection though I saw some safety glasses and even a face shield or two in the crankshaft forging area.
Many of the line jobs (I'm thinking in particular of the man on the chassis line whose entire job is to drop two or three rivets into prepared holes so the riveting machine at the next station can head them) must be stupefyingly boring except for whatever satisfaction (and safety) is to be gotten from keeping up the imposed rhythm of the dance.
The vehicle being built is the 1936 Chevrolet Master line with IIRC a sedan body. An extraordinary amount of technical information about this vehicle and its differences from the 1935 model is available in http://www.gmheritagecenter.com/gm-heritage-archive/docs/Chevrolet/1936-Chevrolet.pdf
Sequence is intro showing die-sinkers then a very short transition narrative, factory startup (firing boilers, starting generators, starting the line shaft etc.), foundry (engine block molding, casting, casting cleanup), crankshaft forging and machining, engine block machining and inspection, engine parts inspection, engine assembly and adjustment, suspension subassemblies, spring hot winding and end grinding then testing and assembly into knee-action suspension units (fancy independent suspension option on the Master auto), then sheet metal stamping, chassis assembly line, body line, mating body and chassis, finishing off, and driving the completed vehicle off the line. Whole thing is 27 minutes and the main title is done by pouring glowing hot metal into an open mold, a very classy touch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvAH-Yskyio - 720p available.
I see something new every time I watch it, like the fellow grinding the block lower flange and dressing the wheel the entire time. And the tool at the head inspection station that seems to be a lever for tipping the head up to look at and a stamping hammer combined. And starting a new stack of strips for stamping roof beams for the first several strips one of the guys has to keep reaching in to the middle and wailing on the stack with a hammer to free them up from each other. I'm always fascinated by all the fancy sand molds needed to cast each engine block, and the big overhead cooling line of cast blocks still covered in sand gets me every time.
reply
share