HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1986-11-05, Page 81Ale
AMIN
CHIIIVII1ION GSS/Wednesday. Nov 5, 1986
George Morley:
inittriiio.
but just he loves
a challenge
George Morley will modestly
submit that people can't
really invent things, they
merely improve upon somebody's
idea or "stretch it."
That being the case, the former
Champion employee of 25 years, has
made an art of improving upon and
stretching ideas into mechanical
works of genius.
Without being labelled an inventor,
the 72 -year-old Morley has literally
conceived, imagined and fabricated
several parts that now appear on the
Champion line of quality graders.
A co-signer of patents and a
prototype builder for many years,
Morley is quick to caution that he is
not an engineer and that he "only
made suggestions."
After working for a Waterloo
manufacturing company during the
war that produced 20 mm gun
turrets for the desert campaign,
Morley established a motor
rebuilding business in Hanover. A
few years later he moved to
Goderich and was lured to the
service.field by the Dominion Road
Machinery Company.
George became one of a group of
four service people, Ted Rowe;
Archie Johnston and Kip White were
the others, responsible for the repair
and maintenance of road graders in
, Ontario. Within a few years, Morley
obtained his pilots licence and often
flew in to remote areas to fix
graders.
"The operator generally kept the
graderain his yard and sometimes it
was just cheaper and more sensible
to fly in, fix it and fly out," he said.
Many times during the winter you
would get stuck going in and out of a
job and have to work around snow
piled up around the grader."
Having proved himself as an
astute mechanic, Morley contributed
many new ideas to the development
of the machine and estimates that as
many as 40 of his ideas were
integrated .into the componentry.
He helped eliminate problems on
an experimental powershift
transmission and perfected an oil
clutch in Winnipeg. Later, when he
People power
78,
George Morley, who worked
for Champion In service for
over'. 25 years, is a
mechanical genius who en-
Icyr, reetL h MS lathe e�
the workshop.
transferred to the research and
development department, he was a
co-signer on the patent for the
hydromechanical transmission.
While his ideas made it a success,
the transmission was never put into
production.
Some of his ideas were major as
was the case with the circle turn
valve he developed in the 1950s for
the rotating blade.
The power circle had two valves
and they couldn't keep the things
timed properly," he explained. "I
told Harold (Rivers) I could make
one valve for the job and
engineering said it couldn't be done.
So I made it on my own time under
the understanding that I would be
paid if it worked."
"Well, they said it couldn't be done
but when I stuck the thing on the
machine, it worked and everyone
came over to have a look. They
asked me to sketch the valve and it
went into production. I think it's
subcontracted now."
Much of the input George has
made is credited to his wealth of
gxperience. "I worked at such a
variety of things that when I come
across a problem I can relate it to
another experience," he said.
"I had a lot of different jobs in my.
day and today companies don't, have
employees with broad, practical
experience.
After 25 years with Champion;,
George retired in 1980, but he simply
retired to his workshop to work more
magic with scrap metal, iron and a
new lathe he was given by ,
Champion..
Since his retirement, George has
been busy rebuilding three military
band organs, actual music machines
that contain a variety of instruments
and operate on the principle of a
player piano. Almost like a self-
contained marching band, George's
music machines have entertained
crowds at fall fairs, exhibitions and
in parades.
While it took George over a yeah to
restore one of the machines he found
while on a service call for Champion
in Beaverton, he discovered he
i,4r; ,r4' -i r,
couldn't buy music for the 1926
model.
Songs in use for player pianos
wouldn't work in George's machine,
so he was forced to fabricate his own
machine that can duplicate
perforated roll songs. With spare
parts, a good measure of ingenuity
and daring, George simply
constructed a machine to do the job
after asking a lot of questions during
a tour at a Buffalo player piano
factory and looking at a picture in a
book.
His perforator, which took, two
years to complete, can copy four
songs at one time. His musical
machine collection also includes a
1916 model organ that contains over
100 pipes and took 2-3 years to
Photo by Dave Sykes
rebuild.
Given the ambition, George may
consider restoring two player pianos
that sit idle in his expansive
workshop adjacent to his Bluewater
Beach home. As was the case with
one of the organs, where he had to
remake 13 trumpets from fiberglass,
he will simply construct parts that
are missing or in a bad state of
disrepair.
Today George is quite content to
live out retirement in his workshop,
creating mechanical wonders, like
the working steam engine he crafted
from scratch one winter, and
tinkering with scrap he's collected
over 60 years. "I'm not interested in
work anymore. I'm just interested in
retirement."
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