Thread: Oh god!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings Chaps. The large machine shop thread stirred my memories.I was privileged to work at Vickers Ruwolt back in the early 70's. The are photos on the web. A 25 foot floor borer, Radial drills where the column moved on ways. Big Horizontal borers where the operator is standing inside the crusher frame watching the tool. We made amongst other things United States Industries Car Presses. They are still in opperation at Ford Geelond and GMH. When the dimise came in the 80's most of the machine went to the new owners in Brisbane but there are a few of the Horozontals still in Melbourne. Vickers could do a 50 ton melt of Cast Iron in one hit. Smorgens in Melbourne have that capacity but they are geared up for steel products. Vicker was on the corner of Victoria ST and Burnley street Nth Richmond. It is a shoppind center and office tower now. I go past occasionally and pay homage. Yours 4-6-4

from my historical collection. (Somewhere in NSW in the late 1890's)

Health and saftey clearly was not a priority pre WW1.

no wonder you see so many images of people missing arms and limbs. let alone how many scalps must have been ripped off...

I would not even dare to walk into a workshop like this..

but is is curious as to how they kept all the bands on the rollers. heaven help anyone nearby when one broke.

Sandy

Awesome picture, can you post any more??


People back then probably had a greater respect for danger...These days a lot of people seem blissfully unaware of dangers around them and they probably are more scared from dangers that are never going to happen to them..

The workplace health and safety laws are good and bad, they are good in that they stop accidents and bad in the fact they give people a false sense of security..

just a few more.

would you balance on a plank infront of great "Leg crushing gears" ?????? (what was he thinking of.. certainly not his own safety)

or put such heavy steel loads on wooden cart wheels. I even have a solid cast iron "thingy" as large as the boiler on the same cart... man, and al done with real horse power... no deisel...

It is lucky there were any engineers left in those days to pass on their trade..

regards, Sandy

just also had to share these also. (Sydney late 1890's or early 1900's)

even though they are blurred and out of focus.

clearly they were taken because of a safety issue.

but would you look at a camera, in a time exposure, in such an unsafe enviroment.

man they lived dangeriously.

regards

Sandy

More great pictures.. I have to admit those open gears are pretty scary...I would not get within 10 feet of them... Notice how that shed with the steel roller in it is made out of timber, posts included and it has a gantry crane fitted to the posts...

If you don't mind, could I post them in the antique forum in the practical machinist forum???

Greetings Chaps. The Boiler thingy is an under fired multi tubular boiler. Quite common in the industrial world. The boiler was surrounded by brickwork with the furnace under the front of the barrel and the heat went underneath the barrel into a chamber at the back through the tubes and out the stack. I worked a Milling machine that was belt driven off shafting at the tramways in Melbourne early 60's. The Pulleys were cambered ie bigger in the middle. If the lacing joining the belt was done correctly then the belt did not come off. There was an idler pulley which rotated freely where by moving a handle you could force the belt on to the idler and stop the machine.The main shaft kept on moving. In the big shops there would have been a team allocated to looking after shafting and belts. There was no tensioning apparatus on these drive belts so when they stretches they had to be shotened to regain tension. There is a saying about the wooden Royal Navy ships...Wooden ships and Iron men. I can see that some of you blokes have led sheltered lives Yours 4-6-4

Hi,

this is the really heavy cast iron "thingy" i was talking of.

hate to think how much it actually weighed. or how they would have picked it up if it broke an axle on the road. as there are no portable cranes in any of the 1,000+ of these negs. (over 300 + photos of all the different boilers they made alone.)

the machine shop/foundery were all the machines and things are made had an earth floor... and there are photos of them simply pooring slag on the floor also.

regards

Sandy

Being well after the pyramids i sure they would of had some type of mechanical means to pick it up if the need arose before arriving at its drop off point.

they would probably have jacked it up. as in the photo below.

but could you imagine the chore that would be... without a crane..

the engineering they did in the victorian times still keep on amazing me.

regards, Sandy

Hi Sandy, Just wondering what you are going to do with these slides you have?? They are excellent quality pictures and a shame to not see them available for public viewing somehow.. Have you considered allowing the State library of Queensland to scan them all in and making them available online on Picture Australia website

sorry that this may be off topic, but you have started me on on of my rants, and, apologies, as it is not aimed at you...

many people have no idea what is going on behind the scenes in many places like museums etc. I do, as I have been caught up in it, and been read the official secrets act 3 times to try and shut me up... (ill bet you didnt know a lot of things donated to state museums end up in government contracted destruction furnaces, if the deem then dont need them, etc.. that lots of very rare items have been stolen from within many museums. One curator of the AWN was actualy caught selling the Naval swords out of the display cases, still with the property tag on them. it is done so blatently and openly. etc.)

The Qld gov has tried to confiscate my collection TWICE. (because my collection rates in the top 10 in the world, in its field Photographica. In a 1991 celebration of the first photo in Australia, which I paid out of my own pocket to celebrate, at a histori display, the famous Power house museum could not put in even 20% of the exhibits. over half of all the exhibits came from MY collection alone)

Qld just passed through its 150th birthday, and they set up a special fund to dole out money for celibrations of this states history... all except me. the legislations was so set up, that I could not apply for any grant.!!! yet painting traffic light control boxes did. I even protested outside state parliament, and they tried to move me, depite police lisence to protest. (I did not even make the minimum income for the last decade. I am assets rich, but strapped for cash)

yet I own history of Qld & australia no one knows or cares about; The gun battle if the Indorropilly Rail bridge during WW1, russian troops in Sydney during WW1 (The AWN tell me it never happend.!!!. yet I have photos.), etc. there have bene many books about the Coo-ee marches in NSW, but the only photo of a genuine Coo-ee flag in Qld, even the Qld barracks are not interested. Hundreds of early Qld train photos and the Rail museum that Got $20 million $ could not care.!!, etc. etc. etc...

Despite my collection being over half a million items (55,000 negs by one photographer alone) and negs of some of our stats most famous images, even the original neg of the Gunboat Paloma washed up in the 1893 Flood (the martime museum could care less). I could not get a cracker out of the government to put on a display... The Ipswich Library wanted to put my entire collection on line, but the insisted that i MUST sign over copright to all th eimages to them for that service, and give them 70 Meg size files of all images.. they are off their rocker... as many other state librares are. I hold almost a thousand images of small WA town Whim Creek in the 1890's. the state library there returned my cd of the images, to busy to even look at...)

I even paid dearly out of my own pocket to put on a display of Qld history at a friends studio. no one turned up... well about 40 people... (when I put the exact sam images, un retouched and small size on display in 1974, I had 17,000 people view them...)

I loaned the state library 8 very valuable items for a display, because the Qld museum collection is so poor (30 pages of paper work for this loan) they gave me back 7 items... (took another two months and at my expence to get back the last item) and then no thanks for the loan...

I have been refused access to photos at the QLD stat library. friends have been refused access to MY books at that library. The federal National Library is right now selling photostat copies of my book, and even a photo taken by me, with out even asking me. etc...

sorry, for my rant, as you are unaware of what Gove depts will do when these little hitlers are given unlimited powers. (I have recieved a recent letter they want "...To come out to my collection and select what they want to keep..." (quote from the Qld arts minister office.) I tried to rally australia against the Movable objects heritage act in the 1980's, but no one would believe me.

the above is not even a fraction of what they have done to me alone, and I am only one collector... and they are doing it to others.

If the public only knew what was going on, they would never donate anything to a museum again...

again my apologies for the rant and being off topic, Sandy

It is a pity the government has gone like this Sandy, I know with my dealings with them they can be quite obtuse and we all know what the Qld state government is like.. I personally find those images extremely interesting and I would consider them highly valuable...They show true history, not some rendered down politically correct history that we get fed by the mainstream media and government...

It is a sad state of society that so few want to know about them...

Hi, the big joke is my collection is as large as it is BECAUSE of places like the qld museum.

My big item, the worlds largest wooden camera left in existence, was offered free to the qld museum. they turne d it down knowing it would be sent to destruction. I saved it, and have embarresed them about that ever since.

and that is why they are taking it out on me. They are not the only ones. I have been given lots to preserve, by people that have tried to donat rare items to federal museums, and been treated so much like dirt (as the gov does to me) that they have simply given me the items instead. (and I know too much about realy rare items that were originaly taken into federal musuems (personlay shown to my by the original owners thirty years ago) that I have since seen on private sale... I realy want a Royal comission into it, but then I know what they would do as revenge... so it stands as a stalemate at present)

I did offer to set it all up as a museum for them, but a donation goes with conditions. which they dont like. that is why they want to confiscate it, as they are then free to do what they want, and the joke is there is no tracing what the confiscate. they dont have to give a recipt etc.. I know of large collection in Qld left to the museum that have "disappeared" and not even 10% make it to the museums vaults... and there are many more like that.

alas I am now reduced to re using much of the print boards, trying to make a living, as no one really cares about the images.. not even Qlders I have shown them to. I seriously think I have wasted 40 years of my life saving things from philistines, for what turns out to be modern Philistines...

again my appologies, Regards, Sandy