My friend's father set up a machine shop in his garage with some heavy duty machinery, this is just one small element of the vast array of equipment.
The excessive grain I suspect is from too much initial agitation before leaving the film to stand. The negatives looked beautiful, but they were a bit dense for scanning.
I have to say that no matter how apparent the grain, I have never been displeased with the grain structure of Tri-X. I can still remember shooting my first roll and falling in love with the tonality and grain.