Another bench!

[Terry McGee]

I recently posted a note about Rudall Carte workshop images. Casey sent me an excerpt from an image of a workshop from the Dayton C Miller collection, but had no further details. I tracked it down and found the full thing, and a few details. I hesitate to show the full image here, as it's a bit big! You'll find the details and link at the bottom of:

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/RC_Wshop1922.htm

The lathe on the left of image is worth seeing the image for alone. Note that it has the woodturning rest currently fitted - the cross slide used for metal turning, slotting etc is sitting below in the swarf tray.

Haynes were making wooden Boehm flutes in this workshop - you can see a number of them in the shot, including what looks like a repair on the bench.

Note too the lumping great vice on the bench on the right. And the lack of guards on all the long drive belts. Shudder!

A ripper image; thanks Casey!

Terry

[Doug_Tipple]

I shudder along with Terry when I see photos that depict unsafe working environments. Open gears and pulleys with drive belts are just examples of conditions that we would now consider blatantly unsafe, Just last night I saw a PBS program about the newspaper business in Los Angeles, CA. One thing that I noticed was the crowded and dangerous conditions of the areas where the type was being set and the papers printed. Large gears without housings were turning everywhere you looked. Of course, the owners of the paper were anti-union and resisted any attempt to improve working conditions. But back then the concept of industrial safety had not evolved to what it is today. It is hard for me to imagine that my 1956 Chevrolet did not have seat belts, but I never gave it much thought at the time. Seat belts are not a very complicated idea, yet thousands of people lost their lives in auto accidents because cars were not equipped with any safety devices, such as padded dashboards and steering wheels, safety glass, etc.

[Aanvil]

Good observation.

Although all this extra "safety" is most likely making the Gene Pool a little cloudy Doug.

[hans]

I don't understand all this shuddering.

Working with a turning tool on a rotating piece of wood always carries lots of dangers (shudder!).
One needs to know what one is doing to minimalise these.
Same with drivebelts: one does stay out of their way.

If Health&Safety has its way, turning wooden flutes would be prohibited.

[Aanvil]

What? <Hits thumb with a hammer>

(@#*$&@(#*$&()!!!!!

[Doug_Tipple]

Driving a car also has its inherent risks. I had that thought this afternoon as I drove on a busy two-lane highway, closing in on the approaching car at 100 mph (I'm only driving 50 mph, you see), and passing the oncoming car with only a safety distance of a couple feet, if you are lucky and the other driver is competent and paying attention. I liken this to the inherent risks in working with any power equipment that can injure you seriously at any moment if you are not careful.

However, the abovementioned inherent hazzards is no reason for not doing everything that can be done to improve safety. I am thankful for laws and policepeople to enforce the laws of the road. I am thankful for the citizens' groups who lobbied for laws to mandate safer cars. The car manufacturers didn't come up with the safety improvements all by themselves. No, you have to make it illegal for them to sell a new car without seat belts. I am for more regulation to improve the safety of our automobiles, our homes, our work places, and other places where a little common sense could lessen accidents that are bound to happen when safety issues are overlooked, sometimes deliverately in order to save money. One contractor that I worked for asked me to stand on the top step of a ten foot A-ladder and work over my head to install awnings. He obviously didn't care if I fell 10 feet to the concrete sidewalk, so I told him to shove his job.

[Denny]

Doug, you are such a rebel!

[I.D.10-t]

...asked me to stand on the top step of a ten foot A-ladder and work over my head to install awnings. He obviously didn't care if I fell 10 feet to the concrete sidewalk, so I told him to shove his job.

And that is using the best safety equipment, the thing between your ears.

I'll agree that some safety things are good, unfortunately people start to use it as a crutch and do stupid things. With cars this scares the heck out of me. Yapping on there cell phone and drinking their coffee knowing they are protected. It seemed for a while every other year there would be a nail gun accident involving someone relying on the safety rather than good habits. Elimination of sharp things has left 2 generations that have no clue how to use a knife.

It is not about intelligence either, just being taught safe ways of doing things. Seat belts didn't do me any good when I was younger because I never put it on. It just wasn't a habit and wasn't for most. Then there were those cars in the 80's that made it so you didn't have to remember because the seat belts were automatic, no effort required. Then it was found that some of the automatic belts were less reliable than the manual ones.

Not that passive safeties are all bad windows in a car have been designed to break in specific ways to protect the passengers. These go unnoticed, are unobtrusive and have saved many lives too. So it is all a mixed bag.

What this all seems to come down to is that Terry Mcgee must be thinking of adding to his line of products a Rudall style work bench and is trying to see how authentic he can make it. Any idea on the wait times and wood choices?

[Aanvil]

What this all seems to come down to is that Terry Mcgee must be thinking of adding to his line of products a Rudall style work bench and is trying to see how authentic he can make it. Any idea on the wait times and wood choices?

Are you sure?

Has Terry a mind to acquire that bench?

That bench isn't made from cocus its it?

You could have make flutes ala the Resolute desks in the Oval Office and Buckingham Palace.

[Terry McGee]

Heh heh, I'll admit I did walk down Berners St and stand outside No 23 and wondered if it was the same building and if there were any old boxes of stuff left in the basement ...

Mary Kirkpatrick, a baroque oboe maker, chimed in to a similar discussion on flutemakers to say that the treadle lathe in the middle of the room was pretty similar to the machine she uses.

With global warming, I might put my time into developing a wind-powered CNC flute-machining centre. A few degrees warmer and blackwood trees would probably do very well in Malua Bay ....

Terry

[I.D.10-t]

Heh heh, I'll admit I did walk down Berners St and stand outside No 23 and wondered if it was the same building and if there were any old boxes of stuff left in the basement ...

Mary Kirkpatrick, a baroque oboe maker, chimed in to a similar discussion on flutemakers to say that the treadle lathe in the middle of the room was pretty similar to the machine she uses.

The sad thing is that a lot of that knowledge is being lost. The nuance of technique is lost and power and machines replace it. Crafts should not just die out and forgotten, but recorded and understood, and the understanding should be recorded again.

[dlambert]

How dangerous could it have been? They all still have their fingers.

[Maihcol]

The more moving bits and pieces are exposed or uncovered, the more accidents that a piece of equipment will cause over time when tens or hundreds of thousands of people are using machines with that design.

Which reminds me - the president of Brazil (Lula) lost a finger to either a lathe or a mill...Some time back, I placed a sheet of newspaper on the bed of my lathe to stop sanding grit from falling on it. Looking up at me from a large photo on the page was Lula showing his hands covered in oil from a new oilwell discovery – with one hand missing the finger. Made me take a bit more care, that did.

I see that the photo of the Haynes workshop was taken in 1904. The clock on the wall says 2.20pm. Might even have been Bloomsday afternoon.

Garry