Avco Everett laser welder demonstrations (early 1980s)

AVCO Everett Research Labs developed 25-kilowatt lasers under government contract for heavy-steel laser welding. Tom's student worked there; his main job was making sure the laser worked for customer demos, because 90% of the time it didn't.

In my own experience, particle beams have been used for welding. In the mid-70s, they were making high-power lasers for military applications, but over here in Everett, Massachusetts — it's now the Mellon Bank building — AVCO Everett Research Laboratories had 25-kilowatt lasers developed for commercial applications under government contracts, and they tried to laser-weld heavy pieces of steel and other materials. One of my students went to work for them, and he said his main job was making sure the laser worked when one of the customers would come in to look at it, because 90% of the time it didn't even work.

Tom's student hired in early '80s to keep the laser working when customers came for demos — 90% of the time it wasn't running. Used to illustrate that high-power laser welding was a research curiosity, not a production tool, despite the capital investment. Avco facility location: Everett, across from BNY Mellon building.

But if you don't have either a very high value-added part like an aerospace part, or high volume that you can keep feeding in there, it turns out not to be economical. It's been proved over and over again, but you're still going to have some manager come and say, why don't we use laser welding? One of my first students was hired by Avco Everett. This is Avco over in Everett, across from there. There's the BNY Mellon Bank, this big building — that building used to be the Avco Everett research facility, and they used to build these 25-kilowatt lasers like the one they sold to the Naval Research Lab. One of my students went to work there in the early '80s, and his job was to see if he could have the laser working when the customer came by for the demonstration, because ninety percent of the time it wasn't working. It was really a research machine.