Vintage work crew photos

[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.