[TheForge] Re: boiler rooms (90percent YAK, 10percent blacksmithing)

[info@reciprodyne.com]

> From: "Chris Caswell" <olayers@sover.net>
> Where and what were the boiler rooms of your youth?
> Chris Caswell

Dear Chris,

I grew up in Southeastern Michigan, within moped distance of The Edison
Institute (A.K.A. The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village). I started
at 13 as a volunteer photographing cataloging steam engines in the
storerooms. At 14 I was a craft worker, slush casting and machining pewter
candlesticks, running and demonstrating steam engines, on weekends,
holidays, many afternoons after school, and all through the summers. During
my 15th summer I ran a cider mill powered by a big hit and miss engine.
During the winters all these years, nearly every day after school was spent
on hands and knees in the cold, disassembling, cleaning, repairing and
reassembling steam engines, boilers, circular saws, grist mills, big platen
presses, DC dynamos, line shafts, machine tools, piping, belts, etc., etc.
By the summer of my 16th year (four years of afternoons, weekends, and
summers later)  myself, other volunteers, our boss, and a couple of staff
had completely restored: A circular sawmill and shingle mill, a printing
shop, a gristmill, The engine room and part of a machine shop. The year
after I left the machine shop restoration was completed. I nominate my
mother for sainthood for having washed and mended my clothes (often
unrecognizable as such) during those years.

My 16th summer was spent as mechanic for the print shop, the sawmill, the
gristmill, the electric generating station (Station A), and the engine room
of the machine shop, all of which were powered by reciprocating engines,
flat belts, and free coal/coke. I lit all the fires, kept all of the
machines adjusted and operational, and instructed the "3rd Class Engineers"
on solid fuel firing. Many, many stories to tell, for sure.  Sadly, it was
all shut down a year or two after I left, after a guy lost his head in one
of the engines.

By 17 I was off to see the continent working with steam locomotives,
traction engines, steam boats, etc. Many more stories there, too.

Mandatory blacksmithing content: Greenfield Village at that time (1978-1982)
had two operation blacksmith shops, both powered by grand bellows and sweat.
When I asked the blacksmith to make some sawmill tools for me, he suggested
that I do it myself. I came by in spare moments to pump the bellows for him
and watch, and after a few weeks started in on my tools. I made a setting
tool for the saw blades, dogs for the sawmill, and lots of levers, brackets,
latches, and stuff for the mills. I don't even remember who the blacksmith
was, he may be reading this, or dead, I dunno.

I have since spent many years doing architectural and industrial smithing,
see http://www.forgingdesign.com for a hopelessly inadequate introduction to
my work.

I have traveled from Berlin to Tokyo consulting, lecturing and advising on
the restoration of historic machinery. I have a very rudimentary website
under construction at: http://www.industrialpreservation.com  but it is very
incomplete due to lack of time. I only have one sample section up. My work
at the Edison Institute was good training for the career that has followed,
and I have since done restoration and consulting work for many other museums
around the world. My other web sites are also rather lacking, sad to say,
but you are welcome to look anyway.

Dear Andy Vida, 

Life in the "Civil War Days" (actually late 19th/ early 20th century) WAS
very wonderful, and the girls were cuter then, too. I have pictures :)
They weren't afraid of dirt either.

The sound of engines, belts, shafts, dynamos, and the smell of hot oil and
steam are heavenly to me. The slamming bark of a 5000 HP steam locomotive
pulling 3600 tons up a steep hill even beats a PAIR of Rolls Royce Merlins,
in my book (but only by a little). To pull the throttle on a big engine and
feel all that power under you is a thrill that will NEVER get old. I have
done lots of other stuff, too, but this whole thing is way O.T. as it is.

The only sound sweeter than these is my daughter whispering "I love you,
Daddy" In my ear. I'm lucky to have done all these things, and lucky I can
still hear.

Tom Troszak