When I punched "Star Machine Works" into the search engine i wasn't sure what I would find. What a nice surprise to discover StarRealoders.com. I knew immediately that I wanted to participate, so here I am. My name is Frank Smith and was an employee at Star Machine from 1962 to 1965. I began as a general helper in the production side working on various machines. The place at 418 10th Avenue was just a marvel to me. I had never seen a machine shop operated with an over-head belt system before.
Initially I worked for Bill Brenizer, a master machinest, that put me to work on a small metal lathe, drill press, grinders, etc. With my administrative experience from the Air Force, I was soon given the responsibility of Office Manager (a one person operation). With the exception of accounting, I did just about everything else including all correspondence, telephone duties, shipping and receiving, including packaging all shipments of machines and parts.
After a while I came to work more for Elard Mock, a mechanical and firearms genius, in the reloader and sizer assembly. Elard never ceased to amaze me as his interests reached well beyond firearms and reloading. One time he brought in a "35mm stereo camera" he designed and built from scratch. Under his supervision I was put in charge of all machine rebuilds that came in from the various police department and clubs. I would dissasemble them, thoroughly clean the parts and rebuild with new parts where required.
I have been around firearms all my life and working at Star Machine was an experience I treasure to this day. Elard was a quite man and always took time to explain to me the many questions I had regarding guns and reloading. With his blessing I rebuilt two old Star reloaders for my own use. The first one was a non-progressive unit with 3 stations for rifle ammo. that I set up to load 30-06 with RCBS dies. Elard said that is was a model they did not produce anymore. It shared many of the same features and some parts as the Progressive. The second reloader was a Star Progressive that we set up for 38 Spl., which I am still using. Star Machine did a lot of business with Krasne's Department store in San Diego which had a full basement dedicated to firearms. I purchased a new military 1903A3 Springfield from Krasne's and Elard supervised my efforts to rebuild it into a sporterized hunting rifle. I purchased an unfinished black walnut stock from Royal Arms, installed new sights and replaced all the stamped parts with 1903 rifle milled parts. A local gunsmith, that Elard knew, turned the bolt down and refinished the Parkerizing. I embedded the action with a free floating barrel and it still looks great and shoots great.
Well, I find myself getting carried away with these memories, so I will sign off for now. Please respond if you have questions and I would very much like to hear from other former employees.
Frank
