THE BON AMI MYSTERY

 I worked at the Naval Avionics Center (NAC) as a design engineer and retold this story of how a system I helped to designed, manufacture, install, and successfully operated for a number of Manufactuing cycles, could, all of a sudden, have a subsystem become unworkable. I relay this story to highlight how seemingly unrelated things in our everyday lives can result in unworkable situations that have always worked before, even in relationship matters.

The Bon Ami Mystery

 

NAC successfully designed and manufactured the AN/SMQ-6 Weather Satellite Receiver Recorder for navy ships and shore installations for a number of years. I was part of the team that achieved that success and we were in the third or fourth round of successful manufacturing when I got an urgent call from the manufacturing assembly floor. The call concerned a sub-assembly of the SMQ-6 called the film transport. The report was that the film transport was failing its acceptance testing and could not be installed into the final SMQ-6 assembly for shipment.

Upon hearing this call for help, I ensured my shirt pocket protector was fully aligned with the appropriate number of pencils and pens and hooked my trusty slid rule to my belt so that all could see that I was fully ready for some serious technical business. Now satisfied I was projecting the proper engineering image, I moseyed out to the assembly area to fix whatever it was that was ailing the failing sub-assembly.

The good people in assembly had a film transport ready for my inspection and quickly demonstrated that, sure enough, the dang thing would not run smoothly. I requested they assemble another film transport assembly that contained all manner of gears, motors, shafts, rollers and associated electronics. The assembler put together another transport under my “expert” watchful eye and we both ensured the assembly instructions were being faithfully followed. To my astonishment, the newly assembled transport would not operate properly even though it had been assembled with my expert engineering presence fully engaged. The assembled assembly personnel, that had gathered to watch the show, immediately wanted to know how I was going to fix the transport so they could get on with their important work.

I answered the call by going into a full blown forensic engineering mode by investigating every component for specification compliance and recalculating tolerances with no luck in finding a cause for failure. I even made a foolhardy trip to receiving inspection to innocently inquire if they really checked each and every incoming component tor specification compliance.  My inquiry was met with some steely eyed glances while other inspectors seemed fixated on my dangling slide rule. One ruffian inspector even suggested that perhaps I should consider purchasing a ticket on the next train to Buffalo.

Well I was stumped. I reluctantly made my way back to assembly after spending futile weeks trying to find the cause of failure and fix the ailing transport that, up to now, had always worked perfectly. When I arrived in assembly, the assembled non-functioning film transports were all lined up like forlorn soldiers with no rifles to shoot and no war to go fight in. Just when I thought all was lost a lady assembler tugged on my white shirt sleeve and said, “Excuse me sir, I know you have been working hard to fix the transport problem but maybe I have some information that could be helpful.” I responded to the good lady with defeated eyes and replied, “I would be grateful for any information you might have,”

The lady said, “Charlie was always the one who assembled the transport but he retired a few months ago and they assigned a new mechanical assembler. The transports that Charlie assembled always worked perfectly. But that’s not surprising because Charlie was a perfectionist who took a great deal of pride in his work. By the way, did you know that Charlie was the last of the old time watch makers that worked at this facility? For some reason, and don’t let on to the new assembler, all of the new guy’s film transports won’t work.”

Fascinated with this new information, I asked the lady if she could show me how Charlie (not his real handle because I have forgotten his name) assembled the transports. She said yes and led me through all that Charlie had done. And she said when Charlie completed assembly, he applied a compound to the gear train, applied power to the transport and let it run for a few days. Charlie then disassembled, cleaned, lubricated and reassembled film transport and then it truly ran like a swiss watch.

I quickly went to the assembly instructions to find the compound that Charlie was using because I could not recall a compound listed in the instructions when a sample transport was assembled for me. I asked the lady where Charlie had gotten the compound he used and she stifled a polite laugh and replied, “Oh Charlie made his own compound.” With a creeping realization about what had happened, I asked the lady if she could show me where Charlie keep his compound. She was happy to assist and she went over to the area where Charlie assembled the transport, reached under the table and handed me a brightly colored round box that cheerfully read “Bon Ami” with a picture of a newly hatched chicken on it with a caption that read “Hasn’t Scratched Yet.”  

I looked at the Bon Ami box, looked back at the lady, and then back at the Bon Ami box as if the box could tell me what was going on. I finally looked up at the lady and asked, “You mean Charlie poured Bon Ami onto the gear train of the transport and then ran it for several days?” The ever-polite lady must have wondered where on earth the facility finds the guys from engineering who could ask such a question, nevertheless answered, “Oh good heavens no. Charlie mix enough water with the Bon Ami to make a paste and then applied the paste to the gear chain for run in.”

Voila, the film transport failure was solved by virtue of a household window glass cleaner/polisher called Bon Ami. Charlie never told anyone of his need for his compound because he didn’t want to embarrass the designers.  Turns out Bon Ami contains mild abrasives (feldspar and limestone) which when applied to the gear train will then gently polish the gears until they ran smoothly after running the gear train for a few days.

But wait. There’s more.

Back in the day of the World War II secret Norton Bombsight that was made here at the facility, the facility hired every watch maker they could find in order to assemble the mechanical computer bomb sight that contained countless precision gears. So, it is very possible that all of those old-time watch makers were secretly using Bon Ami as well to make the bombsight work well enough to bomb the evil Nazis back into the stone age. I’m just saying.