Granite in Machinery nothing new Also Bridgeport #1

[Curt Harms]

I was recently faced with a week in New England for work. My job is such that I have nothing to do when I'm someplace, my job is getting there and back. I'd seen something on TV about the precision museum in Windsor, VT. http://www.americanprecision.org so decided to pay a visit. The first thing inside the door was a large engine lathe with a granite base. Yes, there are pics, not very good ones, sorry. I believe there are some Bridgeport milling machine owners on this board. I now where its' older brother lives:).Serial #1.

The museum also has water and steam powered drills, lathes, scrapers etc.
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[Curt Harms]

two more pics that I thought might be of interest. This machine made precision rules and the like. The repeating mechanism is a large iron wheel which has hundreds of holes drilled in it. How it works I have no idea. It's a neat place although not large enough by itself to warrant much of a journey. There are other neat places of interest up & down the connecticut river valley.

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[Curt Harms]

Up I91-I89 to the Shelburne museum.http://www.shelburnemuseum.org. They had a Shaker exhibition which I found interesting. I also found out that the shakers are an offshoot of the quakers. There's (prominent) quaker families around the Philadelphia area today. Thomas Moser is doing a presentation Aug. 9 presumably on the Shaker style. I asked the docents to convey my thanks to Mr. Moser for doing his bit to jack up the price of Cherry wood:mad: :D.

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[Don Orr]

Cool stuff Curt, thanks for the post ansd pix.

[Curt Harms]

The first couple pics are intended to make the neanders drool. My camera doesn't have enough flash oomph or fast enough CCD to deal with low level light but I hope You get the idea. If anyone can edit them to make them look better, feel free. They have a large collection of wood & iron working tools. The saw & planer are both water driven, of course. The wooden band saw is located in the blacksmith shop, I guess because it was used for cutting out patterns. The only metal part on the bandsaw was the blade; wheels, table, pulley everything else was wood.

I'll stop this before Keith & Aaron send an invoice for a new hard drive for the server. Both are recommended stops if you're ever in the area. Thanks for looking.

Curt

[Bruce Page]

Very cool stuff.
Thanks Curt