workshop walk around (lotsa pics)

[ausfire]

Spent the last couple of days making our mine workshop accessible to visitors (it was previously out of bounds). Our tourists can now walk through the shop to the mine site. They enter past a garrett portable steam engine (pic 1) and then proceed past the display of steam drill machines, the forge and anvil, then out via the mine steam winch (pic 8) which is connected to a bucket over the shaft. The shaft and adits are original mine workings from the late 1800s. My next job is to make up some explanatory signs for some of the things in the workshop. There is a yellow machine on the bench in Pic 5 and nobody here knows what it is. Any ideas?

I know you like pictures, so here's a walkthrough:

 

[Al Stephens]

Aus, thanks for the pics. Reminds me of a steam association I was a of member of in PA.  Al

[JHCC]

Looks really cool, Aus. Thanks for showing us.

3 hours ago, ausfire said:

There is a yellow machine on the bench in Pic 5 and nobody here knows what it is. Any ideas?

The thing with the handwheel and the screw? Obviously a mechanism to move something manually over a fairly short distance. I could see that moving carriage being bolted to a sluice gate or the like.

[ThomasPowers]

Wow a lot of neat stuff!  Now you need a frock coat and long mustachios to twirl while saying:  Bwahahahahahahahahahaha  (it could be very 19th century mad scientist...)

[Daswulf]

It's like rusty metal heaven....

Thanks for more awesome pictures. Can't get enough and can look and daydream all day.

I'm with JHCC on the yellow piece. That or a mechanism to engage or disengage something? 

 

[John in Oly, WA]

Thanks for the pics. It reminds me of my Grampa's house -  a fun place with all kinds of interesting iron. My Grampa would've been in seventh heaven walking around there. Of course he would've wanted to tinker with everything to make it "skookum".

[Frosty]

Thanks for the look Aus, I'd like to take the walk through. I see lots of pocket size stuff, I'll need bigger pockets. 

It's a feed mechanism, possibly for a steam drill, though a sluice gate is plausible too. It's a pretty general type of mechanism, I'll bet there were lots of similar everywhere.

Frosty The Lucky. 

[ThomasPowers]

Frosty reminds me of the Pre-TSA days when I once came home from a vacation with a 90 pound carry-on.  They weighed your luggage; but not your carry on...of course that was in the pre wheeled carry ons too...

[TwistedCustoms]

I REALLY like that grindstone in pic#3!

[rockstar.esq]

Cool photos, thank you for sharing.  

This got me to thinking about something a little silly.  Out where I live there are lots of residential developments with home owners associations (HOA) that dictate the color palate for house paint in the neighborhood.  To my eye, all the HOA's seem to agree that the only acceptable colors are those you'd find splattered on the floor of a primate exhibit at the zoo.  Brown, to polite company.

Anyhow, looking at a neighborhood, you can kinda tell who's made changes over time and who hasn't.  The only thing that never changes is the aforementioned color palate.

Looking at the photo's it struck me that "rusty" would generally define the aesthetic of a lot of blacksmith shops.  Just like the "new and improved brown" homes, there are types of "rusty" that signify changes afoot.  Rusty with a good coating of dust might signal a pack-rat collector type.  Rusty with shiny working surfaces, might accompany a working shop that lacked humidity control (roof).  

The one that really speaks for itself is the "curated rust" that I find on fairly modern tools that were labeled "antique" to justify a higher asking price.  I wish I was kidding, but there's an antique shop near me that literally paints hammers and saws with a rust colored brown paint. You can buy yourself a genuine antique Harbor Freight hammer for just $20.00! 

 

[Frosty]

3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Frosty reminds me of the Pre-TSA days when I once came home from a vacation with a 90 pound carry-on.  They weighed your luggage; but not your carry on...of course that was in the pre wheeled carry ons too...

AK airlines used to allow 70lbs. carry on and didn't weigh them unless they were really obviously too heavy. I didn't put the dive weights in the overhead, I'm not THAT dense. 

I like the grind stone too but my imagination was really drawn to the clutch, maybe brake pads in the same pic. My imagination ran to the size power hammer that used need those puppies. Real neighbor annoyer, I'd LOVE to press the treadle.

Frosty The Lucky. 

[Marc1]

1 hour ago, rockstar.esq said:

The one that really speaks for itself is the "curated rust" that I find on fairly modern tools that were labeled "antique" to justify a higher asking price.  I wish I was kidding, but there's an antique shop near me that literally paints hammers and saws with a rust colored brown paint. You can buy yourself a genuine antique Harbor Freight hammer for just $20.00! 

 

It is an art to reproduce the genuine antique patina colours. All our shop production was coated to either look rusty or shiny metal and still being protected from real rust. of course if it is done to deceive, then it is a despicable act. 

I remember a flea market I used to attend. There was this guy ho had a real talent in making reproductions in wood carvings that passed for antique. He would go to the extent of making holes in the base resembling drill holes from borers. 

i was there once when a lady wanted to buy his hand carved "antique" chest. She was about to buy it when she turned it around and saw the borers marks. No assurance from the stall owner that he had treated the borers convinced her to buy it. Next week all the 'borer' holes were putty shut

[ausfire]

Thanks for the comments. I enjoyed reading them.

Frosty, I'm not sure hat you were referring to about a clutch or brake pads. The thing sitting on the boiler behind the grindstone is a wooden pulley wheel (or the halves thereof). Just down from this workshop we have a set of stamps which crush tin ore. The five head of stamps are driven by a tractor which has a belt drive attached to a wooden wheel like the one in the pic but much bigger.  Here's a  photo of the stamps working:

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

Looks a lot like the ones from the 1500's   (De Re Metallica, Agricola)

[Daswulf]

Wow. Not far off at all. 

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Four station power hammer

I agree that the yellow item is used for adjusting or feeding another item. A rock drill feed seems likely considering the other items you have.

You have too much fun Aus...

[ausfire]

11 hours ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

Four station power hammer

I agree that the yellow item is used for adjusting or feeding another item. A rock drill feed seems likely considering the other items you have.

You have too much fun Aus...

Yes, definitely too much fun. It's a great place to work.

There are similar items to that yellow thing in with the rock drills, but much smaller and without that large disc, just a small handle on the end of the drill cradle.

16 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Looks a lot like the ones from the 1500's   (De Re Metallica, Agricola)

Very similar! We don't have t shovel the ore in though. There's a hopper above the intake. You can hear the thing crushing ore from a good distance away - just as well we don't have near neighbours.

Those weights up above the cams are about 250 lbs each. They make great substitute anvils. They are not magnetic though - someone said they have a lot of manganese in them.

[JHCC]

4 hours ago, ausfire said:

They are not magnetic though - someone said they have a lot of manganese in them.

Manganetic, not magnetic?

[Frosty]

6 hours ago, JHCC said:

Manganetic, not magnetic?

No John, high manganese alloys are non magnetic. I don't recall the % where they become so but crusher drums, plates, hammers, etc are typically high manganese alloy. This is something that gets drummed into you in hard facing classes. You have to be darned careful of the HAZ when hard facing high manganese alloy steels. Always carry a magnet so you can check!

Wood pullies! Yes, that answers my wondermentations of how clutches like that would work. They're not clutches DOH! 

Thanks Aus.  You DO, you have too much fun for one guy.

Frosty The Lucky.