Vintage work crew photos

[Jon]

No mechanics pictured, I am sure all of the guys in suit and tie and hat are not mechanics.

Ralph

Good point, that one isn't very work crew-ish. I need to make a good spot to put these excellent machine photos that don't make the minimum size requirement for our large machine photo thread: High-quality black-and-white photographs of large old machines and tools

Anyway, here's a very orthodox work crew photo.

Workers at the Mann Axe Factory, Reedsville, PA, c. 1885.

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...w_fullsize.jpg

[Toolmaker51]

Anyway, here's a very orthodox work crew photo.
Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...w_fullsize.jpg

Axe factory, I buy. Side job for Broadway actors, instead of waiting tables? Dunno
But WTH is this? Bullet-proof chamber pot? R&D 'Fat Man' prototype? An early Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg [#1] device with contributing designers? No, wait he'd only be 2 years old by then...

R2D2's great-great-great grandfather? Notice casters hadn't been invented [or available] yet.

[Radioman]

Axe factory, I buy. Side job for Broadway actors, instead of waiting tables? Dunno
But WTH is this? Bullet-proof chamber pot? R&D 'Fat Man' prototype? An early Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg [#1] device with contributing designers? No, wait he'd only be 2 years old by then...

R2D2's great-great-great grandfather? Notice casters hadn't been invented [or available] yet.

Looks like a pot belly stove to me. What he’s doing with it is another thing.

[12bolts]

I agree.
I wonder what happened to #19 & #20?

[volodar]

#1 is demonstrating/explaining something to hat modeling audience. Right hand holds shaft of axe-grindstone/belt pulley assembly. Far end of shaft sits on block for height adjustment, pot belly stove doing temp duty as sawhorse. Can´t discern what his left hand is holding.

[ranald]

Axe factory, I buy. Side job for Broadway actors, instead of waiting tables? Dunno
But WTH is this? Bullet-proof chamber pot? R&D 'Fat Man' prototype? An early Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg [#1] device with contributing designers? No, wait he'd only be 2 years old by then...

R2D2's great-great-great grandfather? Notice casters hadn't been invented [or available] yet.

I have made a couple of real mistakes with this block making machine. As a youngen I'd help dad mix concrete for the back yard. Each time some mix was left over we would make concrete blocks. 5 decades on i needed a spot to store the machine (big mistake number 1= I stored it in a shed I had converted from a badly leaking concrete water tank that i converted into a shed complete with wooden hinged door, glass side panel for loght to see the jo blakes & an awning over the doorway: the humidity in ten years has almost destroyed it). Mistake number2 = I decided to restore it by chelating (10%molasses & bal water). I didn't have a container big enough so dug a large hole and lined with viscreen (very durable plastic sheet used under concrete slabs etc). I had help to lower the heavy inem into its temperory home. Alas we had a very big wet and suffered a small land slip of shale & clay which almost buried it.


When I went to dig it out there was a dangerous resident in the black plastic so i left well alone until my son visited and we dug & lifted it out. Rather than land fill I have advertised it for restoration or as a garden ornament that a Pandora or other vine can crawl over.



If I had the time & space I could make many parts (using rusted ones as templates) from quality hardwood but that isn't the case here. I'm culling and storage is a big issue.

[Toolmaker51]

One of the rotors of the HMHS Britannic suspended over a turbine casing, Belfast, 1913
How on earth do pour such an immense casting, and inspect for porosity? For that matter, how much lead time was consumed building the pattern?
And however large, with turbine going in, line boring is already done...

[Unkle Fuzzy]

No patterns used. Like ship's propellers the mould is built out of bricks of moulding sand and then hand shaped by carving away anything that doesn't look like a turbine housing. For really big low count or one of a kind castings this is basically the only way to do it. The pour gets really interesting. Multiple ladles of metal poured one behind the other before the previous pour cools to much for a good bond. For real high strength sand moulds clay binders may be too weak and Portland cement or sodium silicate as a binder, with the result that the mould has to be jackhammered away from the casting.

[Toolmaker51]

No patterns used. Like ship's propellers the mould is built out of bricks of moulding sand and then hand shaped by carving away anything that doesn't look like a turbine housing. For really big low count or one of a kind castings this is basically the only way to do it. The pour gets really interesting. Multiple ladles of metal poured one behind the other before the previous pour cools to much for a good bond. For real high strength sand moulds clay binders may be too weak and Portland cement or sodium silicate as a binder, with the result that the mould has to be jackhammered away from the casting.

Mmmmmm, jackhammering shoulder level or overhead....sounds lovely.

[stillldoinit]

Looks like a small potbelly wood stove with a cast iron Dutch oven sitting on top.