[TheForge] Environmentally friendly tooling

[Mike Spencer]

Some people don't have the funds for a press.  Some people aren't in a
great hurry to get a job done.  If you're in both of these categories,
you might think about working up a press based on this little squibb:

    Rutherford Platt tells the Story in 'The Great American
    Forest'....In 1875, a Massachusetts farmer, curious about the
    growing power of expanding apples, melons, and squashes, harnessed
    a squash to a weight-lifting device which had a dial like a
    grocer's scale to indicate the pressure exerted by the expanding
    fruit.  As the days passed, he kept piling on counterbalancing
    weight; he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw his
    vegetables questly exerting a lifting force of 5 thousand pounds
    per square inch.  When nobody believed him, he set up exhibits of
    harnessed squashes and invited the public to come and see.

    

Tip of the hat to Peggy, who spotted it in Annie Dillard's 'Pilgrim at
Tinker Creek'.  (p. 166)


-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^