# Photos Of Old Workshop 100 Years Ago



## BillWood

http://pounceatron.dreamhosters.com/fay-scott/shop/index.html

I thought this set of photos was fascinating. First few are of the admin office then the workshop.

Bill


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## buffdan

fantastic.. Imagine being able to take a shop tour during the day..
Thanks for sharing


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## pdentrem

Look at all the guarding around the flying belts! Modern safety inspectors would have a heart attack.
Pierre


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## ogberi

You can almost smell the grease, cutting oil, and cigarette smoke. 

Ballsy of those guys working that close to cast iron without much protection.    Some big honkin' cores in those castings, too.   Wonder if they were sodium silicate bonded or what method was used to bind them.


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## brino

Wow! Just Wow!

Thanks for sharing.
-brino


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## Ulma Doctor

great pictures of an era gone by.
thanks for the picture link!!!


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## Travis7s

It simply amazes me how they were able to engineer and build quality things back then. I can barely change a light bulb without consulting Google!


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## pdentrem

Here is a workshop back in approximately 1930. Williams Gold in Fort Erie Ontario. They were also the makers of Williams Warblers fishing lures. Note that the lineshafts are still in use but the belts have wooden covers at the machines. There is also some more pointed protection in place as well.
Pierre


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## taycat

great pics, cheers.


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## hdskip

I bet the guy supplying drive belts was a happy fellow!


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## thomas s

Great pictures thanks for posting.


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## ray

Guess OSHA wasn't even a dream back then.  Amazing thinking of how things were made and with limited equipment back then.


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## psychodelicdan

I don't know. It looks like they had a  lot of tooling on those shelves on the left in that one photo. I bet those belts made quite a ruckus.

Master of unfinished projects


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## DougD

Wow, great pictures......thanks for sharing

doug


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## core-oil

ogberi said:


> You can almost smell the grease, cutting oil, and cigarette smoke.
> 
> Ballsy of those guys working that close to cast iron without much protection.    Some big honkin' cores in those castings, too.   Wonder if they were sodium silicate bonded or what method was used to bind them.


Hi Ogberi
It is amazing the "advancements" we have made since those photographs were taken, In fact I think on the so called advancements made in the foundry trade in my time scale over the last 58 years  And my take on the matter is I would rather be back in the foundries I worked in then, than the similar apologies for foundries of today
It is a horrifying thought these guys were casting metal with no eye protection, In my young day's we had safety goggles and asbestos gloves!, As regards the hot metal , We were careful but not afraid, The core sands used then for the big cores was usually a mixture of a natural rock sand some silica sand, and additional binding materials to hold the sand grains together during forming the cores and casting the metal into the moulds, where they had to withstand the wash of the molten metal
The supplementary binders were numerous, We used a clay /water wash, starch powder , & sometimes some dried horse manure!   For the tiny cores we used oil binders, Usually a linseed oil base, When making small cores this was pleasant stuff to work with.
In those days there was a lot of skill involved, the old moulders were a happy go lucky bunch of guys, One just jogged along at a reasonable pace, Unlike today with its zero hours contracts, folks in charge who haven't  a clue etc.. !
Well I guess I had then youth on my side + enthusiasm, & did not mind getting my face & hands  grimy with the graphite powder, Would I do it all again or some other occupation?


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## DanBlack

Such an insight to the old ways of manufacturing


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## Round in circles

Thanks for taking me back into yester year (& some ).
I liked the heavy machine leveling ramps , that's not something I've seen for  over 49 years when they were used to level & true up a big capstan lathe capable of turning a six foot internal diameter at The Ruston Bucryus  Works of Lincoln England .


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## Mark_f

Absolutely amazing. I see some old Giddings and Lewis horizontal boring mills in a couple photos. I worked for them for almost 12 years. Some of those old machines are still running. I have worked on a couple. Some have been retrofitted with slightly newer technology.


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## bpratl

Great photos, thanks for sharing.


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## tomh

Wonder what the lever action rifle on the wall is for.


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## pdentrem

Varmints, when they are far. Something for short range critters is on the left!


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## jere m

http://pounceatron.dreamhosters.com/fay-scott/shop/small/small-slide-035-output-13262.jpeg

it looks like chas g Allen drill presses in the back right. pretty cool to see where some like (what's left of) the one in my garage came from! just seeing a date and patent information is nothing like this.


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## 51cub

Amazing pictures! Thank you for sharing!


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## Half Nut

Great pics, thanks for posting them, Osha would have a field day if they were around back then.


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## planeflyer21

Half Nut said:


> Great pics, thanks for posting them, Osha would have a field day if they were around back then.



No they wouldn't.  They would see so many violations, they wouldn't know where to start and their heads would POP!


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## 'Topcraft

Thats Awesome, I will be looking at those pic's for a long time


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## 'Topcraft

I think that is a really good example of why OSHA was formed. I worked in a "modern foundry" back in the 80's and it was dangerous as hell. Looking at those photos I can't imagine how dangerous it was back then. Come to think about it, Appleton Electric Foundry wasn't all that modern at the time I was there. The building where my shop was located housed a brass foundry in the late 1800's. Not there anymore tho


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## Jcl

Those pictures are great!  It appears that housekeeping was fairly low on the list in that factory.  I began my training in a flat-belt machine shop.  The joke was, "Those belts are hanging around looking to see who's for lunch."  It didn't take long to learn to live with them, and I thought they were fun.  I collected a good amount of line shafting, and I was going to set up a flat-belt shop in my barn with some of my older equipment.  In time the idea faded, and I gave most of the shafting and hangers to a museum.   Jcl


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## wrat

I will probably regret being such a killjoy, but a few of those pictures are obviously from a time newer than the title would indicate.
Still, very cool and always a twinge of nostalgia comes through. Even disc sanders got a belt to the ceiling.  Amazing.

Wrat


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## uncle harry

hdskip said:


> I bet the guy supplying drive belts was a happy fellow!



The cows probably were not too happy.


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## malmac

The thing I note is that people had jobs - now in Australia we have lots of lawyers and politicians but less and less folks with real jobs making the world a better place. Oh that's right, its Chinese people who have the real jobs now - silly me.


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## juiceclone

somewhere around 1964 I went into an old shop in Cleveland Ohio "Fanner Mfg" to install a vending machine, and was fascinated to see the shafting in the rafters and one shaft still turning, running a ginormous forge at the end of the building.  I wonder who else has actually seen or worked on that stuff....or if any is still in use anywhere??


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## core-oil

Juceclone,

I  had a working lifetime which spanned the era 1954 till 1998, So guess it was getting on for half a century, I would most likely have worked on for another few years, but illness precluded that , come to think on it by then I was getting thoroughly fed up with the so called workshop mentality which had by and then not crept in but came in like a gale, brotherly harmony and a workshop feel good factor was, Well not quite like that of the old workers of the 1950/s through to the early seventies ! But lets not moan and get back to some of the old shops I remember.

The town and area where i began my working life had an extremely nice old well equiped maintenance shop,  belonging to the local harbor authority,  The whole plant being driven from overhead line shafting, It was a reasonable peaceful place not much sound from the overhead line shafting which leisurely spun round at about  140 revs/minute, only the slight swish  of the belts on the pulleys,  The belts were not tight  but seemed to sort of hug the pulleys and give an excellent drive, plus the clicking of the belt lacings,  When the turner wished to change his belt from one step of the speed cone to the other, he used a belt stick,and nudged the belt over on to the next step on his cone down a speed & then flicked the other side of the belt & low and behold it would change over on to the corresponding cone on the  lathe counter shaft above his head,  When he wanted to stop or start his machine he pulled on  one off two" skipping rope" handles hanging on  ropes  either of which was designed to operate a simple mechanism throwing the belt from the main line shafting driving pulley to either a "fast & loose pulley" on the lathes counter shaft, All this control going on well above his head.

On these old lathes if the poor old thing had not been beaten to death too much, when in back gear one got a rumble from the head stock, and in some cases a slight ringing sound from the change gears, Another thing that springs to mind was a slight smell of Archangel tar, this was from a weird and wonderful concoction known as "Gandy  Belt Dressing" 
used to stop the belts slipping under the load,   In these old shops another machine which gave  quite a rumble from the machine gearing was the planing machine, coupled with a rhythmic  click when the kickers changed the machine's  table direction.
 As can be imagined the bigger the plant the more the noise , Tw of the old marine engine building shops in the Clyde area each still had a big vertical wall slotting machine, These old machines had in the case of one of the shops was capable of a planing cut of twenty five foot in length,  They looked like big lathe beds bolted to the shop pillar, and had travelling on their slides a big saddle carrying the cutting tool  which could be fed in an in or out configuration depending on the depth of cut the machine operator wished to adjust to   The workpiece was bolted to a movable table wich could move longitudinally from left to right or vice-versa with a synchronizing feed from the tool block

The big cutting tool block was driven down on its cutting mode by a big lead screw   which was controlled from a fast & loose pulley arrangement driving three big bevel gears on the reverse of the screw one got a lovely loud gear rattle,   These powerful big machines could easily plane up a big marine engine bed, tied on its table on a huge pair of angle plates, The whole ethos of these old machines was a privilege to see, As the concept of these big things was from the fruitful mind of William Murdock a Scotsman who was the works manager of  the steam engine works of James Watt in the early 1800/s  The last of these machines worked in this area until 1980
 I remember also an old crane works  whose big face plate lathe was underneath  the drawing office  What a rumble that gave throughout the establishment , Kept the guys awake!


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## bpratl

core-oil, very nice write and explanation of you old shop. thanks for sharing. Bob


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## francist

Great remembrances, core-oil. Thanks for letting us in on them. I've also got a question and maybe you're the perfect person to ask:  I was watching a video not long ago and there was a line shaft in operation. I get the whole slack-loose pulley thing, but also on each section of rotating shaft was a loose fitting ring for lack of a better word. Looked like it was maybe 4" or so in diameter on a maybe 2" line shaft, and it just kind of wobbled and oscillated back and forth as the shaft turned. It wasn't connected to anything, it just kind of randomly floated around up there. What was the purpose of those? Distributing oil between the bearings along the shaft, or something like that? Stop birds from roosting? (Ha ha) Any ideas?

-frank


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## uncle harry

francist said:


> Great remembrances, core-oil. Thanks for letting us in on them. I've also got a question and maybe you're the perfect person to ask:  I was watching a video not long ago and there was a line shaft in operation. I get the whole slack-loose pulley thing, but also on each section of rotating shaft was a loose fitting ring for lack of a better word. Looked like it was maybe 4" or so in diameter on a maybe 2" line shaft, and it just kind of wobbled and oscillated back and forth as the shaft turned. It wasn't connected to anything, it just kind of randomly floated around up there. What was the purpose of those? Distributing oil between the bearings along the shaft, or something like that? Stop birds from roosting? (Ha ha) Any ideas?
> 
> -frank



From my understanding those rings kept the shafts clean and dry thus avoiding rust and facilitating future ease of maintenance. That was the explanation from a local machinist who had a shop with line shafting powered in warm months with 3 phase power and in Winter with live steam that also heated the shop.


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## Superburban

tomh said:


> Wonder what the lever action rifle on the wall is for.



Why to keep the OSHA inspectors away of course.


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## core-oil

uncle harry said:


> From my understanding those rings kept the shafts clean and dry thus avoiding rust and facilitating future ease of maintenance. That was the explanation from a local machinist who had a shop with line shafting powered in warm months with 3 phase power and in Winter with live steam that also heated the shop.


Uncle Harry,

Glad you reminded us all about the little rings floating along the line shaft as it revolved , Cleaning rings to dust off any build up of rubbish & dust, On one line shaft driving system I remember, there was on the longest section of shaft, between the bearing hangers and pulley wheel  two little rings which used to float along from the extremities of the shaft , gently collide in the middle and proceed outwards again , These little rings gave out a lovely tinkling sound which was melodious, ( A sound from a pleasanter and more peaceful age)


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## FOMOGO

Watched a video recently of a current overhead shaft driven shop and the leather rings traveling up and down were referred to by the owner as shaft mice. Mike


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## Silverbullet

Back in the middle 1970s  one of my first apprenticeship shops or jobs guess we had an ancient boring mill with overhead flat belt drive but was run with an electric antique motor mounted on the floor to the left of the mill. Guess who had the pleasure of running and maintaining her . YUPP the big strong young guy fresh out of vocational school. I used that mill and an open sided planer to bore and size bearing blocks for a steel mill in Pennsylvania. YUPP the old mill flattered and sang its own song on many seventy hour work weeks for me . Plus boring plates 4' square by 1" thick all day long loading and unloading by hand
I don't know how much they weighted but let me tell you by the end of a twelve hrs shift I was friggin pooped. That got old after a few years so I found another job at more pay and only 5 hours overtime required. I was in heaven no more bracket my back a crane full length of the building , after six months I was made second shift Forman , I worked hard to get it and hard to stay there. But enough story time those old machines could turn out very close tolerance parts is why I chimed in. The old mill is probably gone now just like lots of good things from the good old days. How did I ever get this old.


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## N2XD

1916 was about the time my father would have been learning the trade. I can still picture his shop that was his life until he passed on. Great pictures.


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## Tim9

Absolutely amazing photos of the Fay and Scott factory. Just beautiful. Thanks for posting.


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## markba633csi

I liked the two kittens, "Fay" and "Scott"  
Mark S.


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