Exploring the Original Boring Bar

answering all the important questions I mean we're starting in the lobby and this is uh for Rottler this is Genesis I mean this is where it all started Rottler started in 1923 making manual boring bars we're gonna go mock up the original boring bar from the 1920s on a block in the shop here I want to know what your theory is on how the heck this ends up in Seattle those think about 1923 Seattle yeah there's no Interstate there's barely railroads out here there's dirt roads this is going to Portland at all this is pre-model a you know this is before the model A was out this is this is working on model T's was there anybody even rebuilding engines at this time and I think of Seattle like it's some remote island like New Zealand where we need to be resourceful way out here because you're isolated from Detroit I don't have access to pistons and parts and things so you have to fix them back in the time where this first became available people did not remove the box from the car the engine Block's still in the car bolted it to the top of the engine blinded up put this manual uh T handle on here and this is the way an engine block was bored in the very beginning manually moving this down very slowly very slowly they call it a boring bar because this was a boring job we've always joked about that it was broughtler manufacturing used to be called Rottler boring bar company and eventually we got into many other machines so we changed it to Robert manufacturing if you go back to 1925 or whatever this is if your block was bad your car was bad it wasn't just removing there was no option so if you couldn't fix this your car became garbage like we buy a new laptop people would have to buy a new car yeah so this is a big deal this one repair means okay now I can save the whole car this is our main office um kind of the Hall of Heritage here we have a lot of cool diagrams hand drawings done by uh the entire Rottler family really I mean going back Andy Rottler is the current owner and he's a third generation owner which is something very unique in kind of all business Industries it always was the Rottler boring company making portable boring bars up through dual-headed monster boring bars progressed into Surfacers CNC machines and and going from kind of small block General engines to production remanufacture and all the way up to large industrial Diesel and gas with the f-80 series and that came out in the mid 80s so Clarence Rottler started Rottler back in 1923 Don Rottler…