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  1. #1
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    Default Belt Driven Working Metal Workshop

    This is a fantastic set up to make anyone envious. I would love to see such a working museum in existence here I wonder how he work go with OH&S and a site inspection?



    This is a 100 lb Hackney power hammer dated 1888. This machine offers exceptional control. It is a pneumatic hammer with variable speed and a brake acting directly on the ram. This brake allows the ram to be stopped quickly, and it also allows a very positive hold aginst the work. It has over 30″ of ram guidance, a solid anvil and a hollow standard with the control links contained inside. It is the Rolls Royce of all power hammers. Unfortunately, the company went out of business in 1894, and this is the only working Hackney known to exist.







    14″ power hacksaw made in Racine, Wisconsin, dated 1914.



    This machine is called a planer. It has a 22″ by 60″ table which passes back and forth beneath a housing supporting a cutter, which in turn slowly traverses across the 22″ width of the table. When work is clamped to the table, a flat plane can be achieved. This machine was made about 1870.



    This is a 19″ Economic engine lathe probably made in the 1890′s.


    This is what is known as a universal milling machine: a horizontal mill with a compound, swivelling table. The company that made this was H.A. Stocker, and there is a 1911 patent date on the machine. Used primarily or making dies and tooling to be used under the forging machines (hammers or press) and for repair. The compound table enables accurate boring of holes at angles for railing spindles.



    This is a 25 pound hammer made by the Little Giant company, one of the most widely known and prolific hammer manufacturers from the 19th century. I use this machine for swagging and for delicate forging requiring very sensitive control.


    His biggest hammer. It is a 250 pound Murray made around 1940. When you really want to move metal. Its capacity exceeds the limit of most men’s ability to handle the stock without a crane–3″ round is no problem for it. This is the only machine in the shop that makes the Reid snort.



    This is a look down the center line shaft in the shop. There are five line shafts in all, totaling more than 90 feet. From these shafts, belts go to the various machines to power them. This was the predominant means of power transmission before electic motors became prevelant in the 1930′s. I’ve never added up how many countershafts are driven by the line shafts or how many hundreds of feet of belt drive the machines.


    A nice stout grinder fitted with a stone and a brush is a very handy tool for a blacksmith.


    This machine is called a toggle press or punch press. It probably was made around 1900. It’s a great old machine for forging pieces with uniform thickness and for delicate, consistent die work. It delivers about 20 tons of force, in single strokes or up to 100 strokes a minute.


    the machining area


    This is a view under the first line in the shop and the line which draws the most power. All three power hammers and two other lines are belted to it.
    …..Live a Quiet Life & Work with your Hands

  2. #2
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    24″ gear-driven Smith and Mills.




    3″ X 4″ rolling mill made by the W. Oliver Company of Buffalo, New York.


    A die filer is for finishing dies, both internally and externally. This little machine has a table which tilts in every direction, a work hold-down, a variable stroke length and four speeds.


    This is a 60rpm tumbler with a 4′ capacity.

    This surface grinder was made in about 1910 by the Noble and Westbrook Company. It has a 110 volt DC chuck which is powered by the dynamo. This is used for sharpening sheering dies, grinding tools and for general work making and repairing dies.


    This is a little Canedy-Otto drill press. It is the only machine in the shop set up to be powered by either an electric motor or the line shaft. This is a good machine with power feed.




    This is a nice stout drill press made in Rockford, Illinois some time around 1900. It has an 11″ stroke and a No. 4 Morse taper.

    …..Live a Quiet Life & Work with your Hands

  3. #3
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    #330 shear made by the Niagra Machine and Tool works of Buffalo, New York. It has an 1/8″ by 30″ capacity.





    Jareck Screw Press, dated 1917. It delivers about 35 tons.


    412lb sawmaker’s anvil. He favours this type of anvil for his work over the more typical combination anvils with a horn. It has a proportionately larger working surface and offers a more solid support for its weight than an anvil with a horn. I wonder if he sit to work lol.


    Hope you enjoyed looking as much as I did.
    …..Live a Quiet Life & Work with your Hands

  4. #4
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    Ohh found more...


    This is an internal combustion engine made in 1898 by the Joseph Reid Gas Engine Company of Oil City, Pennsylvania. It provides everything in my shop: power to my machines, my lights, my compressed air and my heat. It is a 750 cubic inch two cycle engine producing a nominal 15 horsepower. The flywheels are five feet in diameter, and it weighs more than 4000 pounds.
    This engine was originally intended to burn natural gas. I burned propane when I first had the engine, but for better economy, I switched to liquid fuel. I have found the best performance using a mixture of kerosene and gasoline. To make this work, I tried several carburetors with less than satisfactory results, so I made my own. It is a two jet venturi type controlled by a butterfly and both jets in the ventury. This uses between .89 and 1.18 gallons of fuel an hour, compared to 2 to 5 gallons of propane an hour.
    I heat the shop with this engine by pumping the engine’s coolant through cast iron radiators inside the shop. It is very affective, and it lets me get more use out of the fuel. I have a separate cooling system outside the shop for in the summer. It consists of a Model T radiator over a 250 gallon water tank.


    Here’s a good look at some of the plumbing this engine required.
    This is the carburetor that I made. It connects to the engine’s gas regulating links, enabling me to burn propane or gasoline without altering the configuration. This is necessary because I start the engine on propane and switch to liquid fuel after it warms up.


    …..Live a Quiet Life & Work with your Hands

  5. #5
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    This is a view of my Reid running in the engine room. It drives the 90 feet of line shaft to the dozen or so machines in my blacksmith shop: the lathe, mill, planer, three power hammers, press, saw, air compressor, drill presses, grinders and so on. It also heats my shop in the winter, by pumping its coolant through radiators around the shop. In this video the engine is burning a kerosene-gasoline mixture with a carburetor I made for it. The load you see it pulling is my 60″ metal planer taking a cut across a table frame. It hardly notices this load, but when my bigger hammer is running along with the planer, the belt in the engine room stretches, and the old Reid makes a little more noise. This engine was made in 1898, and it is still making a living.

    The line shaft in the engine room. It drives the fan on the radiator, the air compressor, an exhaust blower, a water pump, the dynamo and, of course, it drives the shop. The larger pulley going above the ceiling is the drive pulley to the shop.


    This compressor comes on and off by itself, determined by the air pressure. This is accomplished by air valves and air cylinders which move the clutch lever automatically without anything electrical. It was a fun little engineering challenge which works nicely.




    This keeps any fumes from the engines from building up in the engine room.





    This is a 140 volt, 31 amp Higgs dynamo made in England in 1925. It generates direct current electricity for the lights and some of the outlets whenever the Reid is running.
    This electrical panel and circuit board is for the DC system. I switch each circuit from AC to DC independently rather than switching the entire shop. This lets part of the shop remain on AC while I run the dynamo.
    …..Live a Quiet Life & Work with your Hands

  6. #6
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    The smaller building in the foreground is the engine house. Since it is a seperate structure from the shop, the noise from the engines is kept out of the workplace. The shop proper is the building seen to the left and behind the engine house.


    view just to show the cooling system for the Reid. It is a 250 gallon tank with a Model T radiator mounted above.


    Coal Forge




    Gas


    50″ long and has seven burners which connect to the blower on my main gas forge.


    Joel Sanderson has been creating beauty with iron all his life. Through a life-long fascination for the working of hot iron, he has developed unique methods of manipulation for this age-old medium. Working in a facility equipped with belt driven machinery over a hundred years old, Joel has combined the most successful methods of the past with new inventive approaches for working iron, the most versatile of all material. Joel’s career began when he was thirteen years old, when he overhauled his great grandfather’s 19th century forge and first actively pursued his curiosity for hot metal. Every free day, every available evening, Joel was found by the forge fire, heating iron, experimenting, learning. Even during his college years, when he was briefly distracted by a teaching career, Joel spent all the time he could learning to form metal: metallurgy and jewelry in the classroom, weekends and vacation by the fire.Returning to his home studio in 1998, Joel began a nation-wide search for rare 19th and early 20th century metalworking machines which would enable the realization of his artistic vision. His studio now contains more than a dozen machines over a century old, several of which are sole survivors from a past era. These rare machines allow expression in metal not possible in any other studio in America. Through the use of this unique mechanical vocabulary, Joel Sanderson creates works of unprecedented form and beauty and has become a leader in his medium.In 1993, Joel decided to abandon all other distractions and pursue his dream with all of his energy. Over the next five years, Joel strengthened the foundation of his education: he began a part-time bladesmithing business, he worked as assistant blacksmith for Black Swamp Forge in Ohio, and then he worked as machinist and die maker for Arrowsmith Forge in New York. During this period, Joel was exposed to many aspects of metalworking, furthering his education and providing a firm foundation on which his understanding of metal has been built.
    …..Live a Quiet Life & Work with your Hands

  7. #7
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Fantastic pics and getting them all on the one page is a great way to have a quick look at John Sandersons workshop but it would have been useful to know right up front where they came from.
    I know we are not at school but it's useful, appropriate, and a good example for younger members to include the original sources.
    Passages cut and paste direct from the web should be placed in quotes, and providing the original source is also good practice.
    For those that want to follow it; http://sandersoniron.com/old/JoelWeb...203-studio.htm
    I just love his tables.

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