Joe Kass, Master Machinist - Manager
George W. Gascon, Master Machinist -CNC Machinist

The Basic Sciences Research Machine Shop manufactures prototypes through machine work for the University’s research effort. This facility is one of the finest shops that can be found in the state of Louisiana. The shop is staffed by two master machinists: Joe Kass and George W. Gascon. Together these machinist have accumulated seventy-five years of machine shop and prototype building experience. The items they produce are utilized in the departments of Chemistry, Physics, Biological Sciences, Human Ecology, Engineering, Geography, Geology, and Computer Sciences. The Pennington Biomedical Research Center, The Center for Advance Microstructure Devices, Southern University, and Tulane also utilize the machine facility.

The machine lab incorporates conventional lathes, three-axis milling machines, drill presses, saws and sheet-metal devices to produce various shapes of bar and sheet stock utilized in a given design. Additionally, the shop has a three-axis CNC milling machine that gives the shop an advantage in certain projects that require cutting techniques that are not available under the conventional genre of machine tools. The shop is capable of producing parts of many shapes and sizes as dictated by the submitter’s drawings. Generally, these include: round, cylindrical, square, triangular, bored, counter bored, tapered, conical, threaded or tapped holes, boxes and so on. Materials used range from metals like aluminum, brass, stainless steel, and copper, to plastics such as pvc, pmma, polycarbonate, delrin, teflon and nylon.