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Fred R Clark & Son Machineworks

The stove has to be my favorite, traditional, really liked it a bunch.

The chair/car that he built last, that rocks!

Thank you for taking the time to post all of these, fascinating. I’ve worked in a machine shop but it was woodworking not metal.

As cool as it is, that stove just turned fuel into heat. The century old equipment in the shop could turn iron and steel into a stove :p


Fred Jr. said his Dad built two of the mobility scooters and due to the poor batteries available and the inefficient motors he used, nether of them worked very well :D
The rear motors were engaged with a lever that pulled them into the tires. They didn't lock on either, they had to be held.

The braking system was cam operated on the rear tires and had provisions on the lever to use it as a parking brake too.

Even if it wasn't the greatest thing ever, let's still give Sr. an A for effort :cool:
 
Lineshaft belt disengagement.
This is the power off switch for a machine.
 
Hand cranked drill press
The flywheel provides the inertia to keep the spindle turning under load
 
The Lathe, what would it have cost back then? Looks expensive!

I’ve gotten into hand crank kitchen tools for baking, we made need the hand crank things for the near future! I love my hand crank mixer!
 
Awesome thread Nitro, thanks for sharing all this. I never thought to see a working line shaft setup. I've only ever read about it
 
Hey Nitro great to see all tnis! I & my husband had a cabinet shop years ago and we used (among all the new equipment) a humungous band saw that used run off one of those steam driven systems. It’d been adapted to an electric motor. The thing was a beast. Good to see these old (actually not so old!) treasures being given a place.
 
Showed it to my ship engineer husband this morning, he’s in awe of these machines as I am. Wish we could see them in person, if you ever do a road show we’d be interested if it came our way.

Wonder if there would be any interest in putting the display in one of the Fall Fairs?
 
Glad to see there are those so dedicated to preserving this part of our industrial history.

Thanks for sharing. :cool:
 
Silver dollar city in branson has a woodshop set up like this for demonstration purposes. They have all kinds of cool stuff from that era, like an actual black Smith, and they do glass blowing. We go 2-3 times a year.
 
Silver dollar city in branson has a woodshop set up like this for demonstration purposes. They have all kinds of cool stuff from that era, like an actual black Smith, and they do glass blowing. We go 2-3 times a year.
We have an active smithy right in front of my shop that is combined with woodworking equipment for pattern making.
One of the lathes is a treadle unit.
 
E E Garvin #1 horizontal mill in a cut

Second pass
 
Showed it to my ship engineer husband this morning, he’s in awe of these machines as I am. Wish we could see them in person, if you ever do a road show we’d be interested if it came our way.

Wonder if there would be any interest in putting the display in one of the Fall Fairs?
It would be next to impossible to do a roadshow.
We have a dedicated building with the lineshaft being an integral part of it.
 
Well this morning had me traveling back to the shop to drop off a microwave and my bedding, so while I was there, I fired up the lineshaft and started the old Ohio shaper.

While it ran flawlessly during the show, I never got it on video of it because of how busy I was.
So here ya are, hot off the film reels:

 
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The spring and summers shows are now in the history books for 2022, but the work doesn't end.
I have spent quite a few longer weekends up at the shop improving my displays and refurbishing equipment.

Last Thursday, I set up camp again and rode out our unseasonably warm weather with highs near 80f and lows hovering around the lower 60s.

Saturday evening was reserved for our annual banquet and the voting in of the new officers..

First up for the project list was getting our WWII era Diamond 22 horizontal milling machine up and running.
I had derusted and lubricated the old girl a few weeks ago and the plan was to power her up for a shakedown run.

I'm not sure if this is exactly according to electrical code, but it did work for the shakedown run :p
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The next step is to add a proper circuit breaker to the box wired to an appropriate socket assembly plus a disconnect, but that will all come later.
Here she is in her rusty and dusty condition after the move:
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Now all slickered up and ready for action, the first cuts were done on wood just to test the mechanisms.
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She traversed well under power feed and ran without any mad noises.
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Good to go kids, time to test another cutter.
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Success was met!
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Time for some real work, cutting metal machining a register to the fixed vise jaw to enable it to be squared to the table.
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Spot drilling some hold down bolt holes:
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The two drills were used as registers on this crappy low dollar vise.
The hold down hardware was bought specifically for this machine.
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The drilling operations were done on an old hand-cranked drill press
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That took about a half an hour to drill three holes, but that was how it was done in some shops.

Next another register was milled on the opposite end of the casting and a slot added for the clamping hardware.

Finished with the exception of three more counterbores for the front bolts so they will be beneath the top of the vise.

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The casting to the left of the jaw on the left was milled just to make it pretty and add one more register for indicating it square.
That is all for now, but now my $30 Chinese vise is ready to be a part of the action on an 80 year old Diamond 22 horizontal milling machine :cool:
 
Saturday was battle day with the Wheelhorse riding mower.
I ended up reverting back to the first replacement carburetor after reworking the upper casting and then adding the original emulsion tube to it out of the original.
The original one had larger orifices which made sense after I thought about it because it had always ran with a lean fuel mixture pop and surged against the governor.
Now the old girl doesn't run half bad and is reliable, so I was able to use it to haul lumber from the sawmill for a chip pan project for our Monarch lathe:
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I love my miter saw and stand for this kind of work.
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Cut and fitted to the legs.

I managed to get most of it screwed together with containment rails for the chips.

The focus here was mainly to eliminate the lubricating oil stains on the concrete and hold the metal chips as it cuts.
One more section will need cut and fitted to the leadscrew drive area before I can call it a wrap, but the hard part is already done.
 

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