[TheForge] Need shop space?

[ries]

On Jun 11, 2007, at 5:52 PM, bmyers647 at comcast.net wrote:

One thig that you didn't consider when you discussed the Cambria  
forge in Johnstown, Pa - bring customers.  Johnstown is a very  
depressed area.  If it weren't for John Murtha bringing home the  
pork, there would be nothing.  There has been a lot of talk about  
making it a museum.  If you could bring in enough customers or sell  
to remote customers, there might be some pork money in it for you, or  
perhaps some deduction on your utilities.  The city is desperate for  
something.

Barry Myers (former resident)


Unless there is big bucks government funding, which so far, there  
isnt, it would take someone with a national, if not international  
reputation and client list.
there is, as you say, no way that a custom blacksmith shop doing  
really high end stuff is gonna do a million dollars a year, and  
realistically, thats what its gonna take to keep that place running-  
in Johnstown.
Or in Pittsburgh.
You would need to be like Paley, doing several projects worth several  
hundred grand, every year.

Like I said before- there are guys in the USA who do this- but they  
all already have shops, houses, kids in school, employees who own  
houses, and so on. Seems unlikely that any of them are going to want  
to pick up everything and move to Johnstown.

And although the hammers are all there, I dont think there is air for  
the utility hammers- originally, they were steam, run from a steam  
plant a half mile or so away. Sometime more recently, I think in the  
70's, they were converted to compressed air, but I am pretty sure  
they were still supplied from an outside compressor somewhere else.  
The air feed line for that big boy is something like 4" pipe- I would  
imagine you would need a 150 hp or so compressor.

there is lots of cool tooling there, racks and racks of it. And  
amazing, industrial sized heat treating ovens, but some of them are  
outside, under a roof, but still outside, unused for almost 20 years.
Every single machine like that is gonna take a rebuild. Which means  
time, and big bucks.

Its a wonderful dream. But unless you have a few million to spare, I  
kinda think its gonna stay that way.

Even the big boys in Forging, people like Scot Forge, use hydraulic  
presses more these days- they probably would think all that stuff is  
obsolete.





Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/