[TheForge] Manual shears and punches

[Ries Niemi]

>
>
> I wonder what ever happened to all those big manual contraptions. Did 
> they
> go for the war effort or are they tucked away somewhere?

I am sure a lot of em got melted down, but once, in about 1980, I was 
riding in a mini-bus across Java. It was a mitsubishi van, about the 
size of the first generation toyota vans, but with 5 rows of seating in 
it, and about 18 of us in there. We were driving thru tropical jungle, 
right near the equator, when suddenly, there is a clearing by the side 
of the road. No buildings, no other signs of civilisation. But there, 
sitting in the middle of the clearing, was a big manual ironworker- 
about an 8" shear, and a big punch, the whole thing standing about 5 
feet tall, and weighing a ton or so. Sitting around it were a few guys 
in flip flops and sarongs, watching while one of them was working his 
way thru a big stack of rebar, cutting it down to small pieces. In 
places like Indonesia, where at that time the average yearly income was 
about $200, a manual machine still made sense.

ries