Vintage work crew photos

[Crusty]

The better dressed guy looking on is why everyone else is trying to look busy.

[Rikk]

Possibly, though more likely the First Bos'n, or Engineering Officer.
Like Scotty on Star Trek, without all the frenzied "...but Captain...!"

That does make more sense. I've never spent time aboard anything other than my 14' fishing "yacht", so I have to admit my ignorance when it comes to the chain of command. I was kind of thinking Engineering of some sort, but could't come up with a title that made sense in my head.

[Frank S]

A good 1st Bos'n / engineering officer/ Senior engineer will quickly calculate in their head that a task will take 12 hours, tell the Cpt./ Boss 24 hours till up and running.
Boss will say you've got 18 then deliver in 15, Is thought of as a hero gets kudos uses them to get time off for the workers. Next time the workers will try even harder to get it done and get it right the 1st time. Morale is good.
The problem with that is the next time Boss begins to expect miracles, workers will forego proper safeties injuries happen task takes longer boss gets mad engineer gets chewed out this spills over to workers morale goes down

[Jon]

Boiler makers, Castlemaine Brewery, Newcastle, New South Wales, 1901.

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

[Ralphxyz]

Whole lot of Banging threading potential, especially the sledge hammer with 12' handle!

Not sure of the device in the center might be some sort of forge or hot plate looks like a teapot embedded on the left.

Ralph

[skibo]

For the life of me, I can't even imagine waylaying that 12 foot sledge hammer!

[mklotz]

The "forge" in the center is a brazier for heating the rivets. The leather looking thing on the bottom of the brazier is probably a hand pumped bellows. The fellow with neckerchief standing behind the kneeling man to the right of the brazier is holding a rivet in his tongs. The kneeling man may be holding a bucking bar to back the rivet as it's peened.

It's possible that the long "sledge hammer" is also a bucking bar used on rivets in hard to reach places. That's a guess because, with such a long, thus flexible, handle, I would think the hammer head would just bounce away from the rivet as it's peened.

[IntheGroove]

One thing is for sure, they knew what they were doing and they did it well...

[Toolmaker51]

I think Marv is right about the 12' sledge, head looks to be twice the weight of a normal heavy sledge [~10/12 pound]. Perhaps one of the crew carried the head or suspended it with line, while the other kept it in place father away. Inside the vessel my have not been room to swing a handled tool.

[Jon]

Packaging line at a Hungarian fertilizer plant. 1940.

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