[TheForge] Line Shaft Driven Factories

Fri May 9 13:16:00 2003

Jerry,
If you take the ferry from Ketchikan to Hollis after you pass Kasan the
ferry makes about a 90 deg left turn heading to Hollis. About half way
between that turn and Hollis on the right side of the channel there was a
large building. This was about 1980.

Darrell

http://www.machinemaster.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Frost" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 10:38 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Line Shaft Driven Factories

> I spent quite a bit of time on Prince of Wales Island a few years back and
> though I asked, nobody told me about such a shop.
>
> Do you have more specifics on the shop's location? It's mostly just
> curiosity now as I don't expect to ever get back there but nothing's
> impossible.
>
> There used to be a line shop in Seward AK. the Seward Machine Shop. I
> happened to be doing a job in the locale and heard the shop equipment and
> tools were for sale and soon to be auctioned. I looked up the fellow
> handling the estate and got to take a tour.
>
> It was a very complete shop started in the late oughts or early teens. It
> stayed in the family till the old man died, his kids had no interest in it
> so it got sold off. The old man built about half the equipment himself
> seeing as Alaska was so remote at the time. He had a number of steam tools
> converted to compressed air and a home made pneumatic car lift to name a
> few.
>
> Anyway, what really got my attention was the smithy, I ended up taking
home
> about 500 lbs of various tools, mostly set hammers and tongs. The one
thing
> I wish I could've taken but had no place to put it was a 1,200+lb anvil,
> Fisher as I recall. The other real roadblock to taking it home was the
> charming way the old man had built his shop, it started small and he kept
> adding on. No biggy except the only way out was across a turn of the
century
> wooden floor over a full basement, running through a maze of . . . stuff.
> One piece of stuff being a dump truck.
>
> Yeah, there was a dump truck parked on a wooden floor over the basement.
> (one of the basements actually) I thought that was scary enough but AFTER
he
> showed me the basement(s) we climbed up on the mezanine and I discovered
it
> was full of scrap steel.
>
> Frosty
> ------------------------
> If it ain't forged
> it ain't real.
> Wrought iron is.
> The FrostWorks
>
> Meadow Lakes, AK.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Darrell" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 3:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Line Shaft Driven Factories
>
>
> > There was a nice shop on the bay on the way to Hollis Alaska on Prince
of
> > Wales Island.
> > It had about an 8" dia water line from a creek up the mountain that ran
> > everything by hydro power. Even had a small generator for lights. All of
> the
> > equipment was line shaft driven. It was a boat shop.
> > Darrell
> >
> > http://www.machinemaster.com
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "RIES NIEMI" <[email protected]>
> > To: <[email protected]>
> > Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 3:26 PM
> > Subject: [TheForge] Line Shaft Driven Factories
> >
> >
> > > Snohomish Ironworks is an intact line shaft driven shop- its not
exactly
> a
> > > factory- the grandson, who runs it now, is more of a fabricator, and
> down
> > > the middle bay he has a large hydraulic ironworker and a couple of mig
> > > machines, which is mostly what he uses. On either side there are line
> > > shafts, and nothing has been touched or even cleaned up since at least
> the
> > > 40's, so there are operating lathes, drills, mills and a big planer
off
> > the
> > > line shaft.
> > >
> > > But even in the Northwest, its not very unique- I recently sold a line
> > shaft
> > > lathe, and in the process ended up finding out about 3 or 4 other line
> > shaft
> > > shops around here. Most of them are not job shops, they are specific
> > > craftsmen who use them for their work, but my guess would be that
there
> > are
> > > at least 100 shops as complete as Snohomish Ironworks around the
> country.
> > >
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