One of Thomas Edison's machine shops

[the harmonious blacksmith]

I'm not the best at computers so I'm just posting this link to a wonderful photo of a lineshaft shop. This will take you to other photos as well.
I was looking for a link I lost with a failed hard drive to a page that gave nearly a hundred photos entitled something to the effect of "Love hiom or hate him, Edison had a wonderful machine shop"
I'm not a big fan of Edison, as he was mostly a genius at exploiting other peoples' ideas. He was, in any case, highly successful and historically notable.

https://loc.getarchive.net/media/one...w-ideas-b1796c

Enjoy, it's a larger lineshaft shop than a couple I trained in. There were still some left in my "yoot".

[highpointpat]

Those old shops were really cool! OSHA would have a hay day with them for sure, LOL I trained on some old lathes that had been converted from old line shaft to motor drive.

[the harmonious blacksmith]

That is what most of my machine shop equipment is, originally belt driven but converted.
that includes three of my lathes (except one was originally driven with "velocipede pedals".
Two milling machines and a third that was motor driven but was set up to run either way,
one shaper, one 12 inch column radial drill (6300 lbs), one "camel back" drill press,
various vertical (to 30 inch) and horizontal band saws, one surface grinder, etc.
I need to get it all more organized and accessible.

Most of this stuff is "tinker toys" compared with the equipment I used at various shops over the years.
At General Iron Works in Englewood (south of Denver) we had a "pit lathe" that would swing
27 feet diameter at the face plate. They also had a vertical boring mill that would swing 46 feet
in diameter, but I never had anything to do with that machine except to stand in awe.

At the moment I'm trying to recover from shoulder surgery which has me doing very little with my
remaining usable left hand.

I think about getting some larger lathes, etc. but its starting to dawn on me that I won't live long
enough to finish the projects I have started now, and realize I don't have the physical strength
to do what I used to do. I depend on a fork lift and loader tractor to move things and have a 1941
International I-9 industrial tractor with a Hughes-Keenan "Roustabout" boom crane that will handle
most of what I need. I'm looking for some 11:00 - 24 tube type grader tires for that machine if anyone
has any source. They seem to be extinct.

Have fun, now, keep out of trouble,

Mo - aka the Harmonious Blacksmith

[highpointpat]

Wow sounds like your better equipped than most shops are today. Those old machines and those of us that can use them are a dying breed for sure. i started running CNC about ten years ago or so but my heart is still with manual machines. i worked at a shop with a VTL with a ten foot table and horizontals that would swing 12 feet I think. Run some pretty long lathes along the way. A lot of great memories that I wouldn't change for the world. We finally have a place now that maybe I can get a couple of old machines and bring them back to life.

[the harmonious blacksmith]

Years ago I read an ad for a lathe that was 24 inch swing by 225 ft center to center. That included a lot of steady rests! Something ordnance related.
That would take some serious mill-wright work to keep be bed straight.