High-quality black-and-white photographs of large old machines and tools

[Frank S]

Everything starts with an idea. Someone wakes up thinking I'm going to build a 50,000 ton press. His first problem is there are no furnaces or cauldrons large enough to melt the iron for the castings there are no forging hammers large enough to forge the parts no lathe exists to machine the shafts nuts bolts pulleys gears ETC. No materials handling equipment to assist in the movement of these large items. The only way these behemoths can become is smaller equipment has to be used to make ever increasingly larger equipment until one day 60 to 90 years later we get to enjoy looking at a black and white picture of a mechanical wonder of the world which has been in operation since before many of us were even born.
It would be interesting to watch one of these builds in reverse all the way back to its beginning then to see how many times machines had to grow from the conception of the industrial revolution watching each machine devolve until we were all the way back to the hammering of the first sponge of molten iron

I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?

[Ed Weldon]

---Quote (Originally by Frank S)---
I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?
---End Quote---
There's an old saying “if I can measure it I can make it”. As already pointed out, you still need the tools to do the job. That said, how about a video series for today's media on the evolution of mechanical metrology going back to what we know of its role in the building of civilizations? The stories range from measuring the length of a kings foot to measuring the wavelength of light. Somewhere in the middle of that is the story of when, in the time of the first world war, the US navy sent one of its fastest destroyers to Sweden to bring back 4 sets of Johansen's gage blocks. Has such a production already been done? Anyone have a link?

[mklotz]

---Quote (Originally by Frank S)---
I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?
---End Quote---
There's an old saying “if I can measure it I can make it”. As already pointed out, you still need the tools to do the job. That said, how about a video series for today's media on the evolution of mechanical metrology going back to what we know of its role in the building of civilizations? The stories range from measuring the length of a kings foot to measuring the wavelength of light. Somewhere in the middle of that is the story of when, in the time of the first world war, the US navy sent one of its fastest destroyers to Sweden to bring back 4 sets of Johansen's gage blocks. Has such a production already been done? Anyone have a link?

Don't include the bit about the king's foot. It might encourage some poor benighted nation to use a measuring system based on body parts, grain and other accidents of nature.

[bruce.desertrat]

---Quote (Originally by Frank S)---
I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?
---End Quote---
There's an old saying “if I can measure it I can make it”. As already pointed out, you still need the tools to do the job. That said, how about a video series for today's media on the evolution of mechanical metrology going back to what we know of its role in the building of civilizations? The stories range from measuring the length of a kings foot to measuring the wavelength of light. Somewhere in the middle of that is the story of when, in the time of the first world war, the US navy sent one of its fastest destroyers to Sweden to bring back 4 sets of Johansen's gage blocks. Has such a production already been done? Anyone have a link?

I don't know if an adaptation of the book has been made, but Simon Winchester wrote an excellent book about it called "The Perfectionists:How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35068671

Highly reccomend it; it's a fascinating story of the advance of modern metrology.

[Jon]

Furnaces at the Rust Engineering Company. Bethlehem, PA. 1968.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...2_fullsize.jpg

[Jon]

44-inch blooming mill at the Homestead Steel Works. Homestead, PA. April, 1954.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...0_fullsize.jpg

[Jon]

Forge department at the Mesta Machine Company. West Homestead, PA. March, 1918.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...6_fullsize.jpg

[IntheGroove]

Lunch time...

[Jon]

Planer in the McKees Rocks Machine and Erecting Shop. McKees Rocks, PA. April, 1904.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...9_fullsize.jpg

[Jon]

Machine Department at the Mesta Machine Company. West Homestead, PA. 1905/1925.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...7_fullsize.jpg