American Craftmanship of Another Era

Fred J said:
Love the detail. What way the camera settings when you took this photo? Reminds me of my Grand Father who would build a house or building from the ground up with his hands a hammer and a hand saw. Those were the days when one took pride in his work and gave a days work for a days pay.
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Fred;
Refer to my post above about the woodworking in the bank. Your grand father and I could be friends talking about our trade.
 
JerrySharrett said:
Whatever happened, WE, yes, WE let it happen. Don't blame it on anyone but US, the US citizens/voters/non-voters!!
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Jerry;

Lets not forget about "good ole' fashioned American greed". While that may not be necessarily true about the machinist trade,
it certainly is in regards to most everything else.
The above photos by Tom D is humbling, as it was when while in the Military I was fortunate enough to spend time in Athens and the "Med".
 
American craftsmanship isn't dead...

but it can be hard to find. Go to the gunshop and compare a Pre-war M-70 with most anything offered today. On the other hand let's see you find one of those M-70's that will shoot like a contemporary Savage varmint gun.

If you want to see craftsmanship, look at the rifles turned out by the American Custom Gunmakers' Guild. They are incredibly good. A few of them are even artists.

Dick Wright

Merry Christmas:)
 
How about these views of a 1st order Fresnel lens installed in 1869 and still in service today though the light source is no longer whale oil.

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"American craftsmanship isn't dead... "

I completely agree with this sentiment.

Nor is every modern "cnc machinist" an idiot.......

I get really tired of people whining about "I wish't they made cars like they use'ta......"

What a load of poo. I completely expect a modern car to go 200,000 miles without even a tuneup! And I OWN old cars, don't tell me about "how good they are..."

And there is production work being turned out by well-tuned machining centers that simply blows away hand-fitted stuff of another era.

We're not going backwards IMO, the concept of "lost arts" is best reserved for Fantasy writing. It doesn't fit into the real world.

al
 
TomD _ Thanks so much for sharing with the rest of us.

The point is not to wish for the old days, but to lament the fact that those of us who want to "make stuff & get dirty and oily" did not have the opportunity to be trained to do that as young people.

I am blessed now to have my Heavy 10 South Bends, bullet-making and wood stock-making stuff, etc. and be able to be involved in the wonderful world of BR shooting_ we are priviledged.

Thanks to all for sharing.

Bill
 
A common problem in matching hires to jobs available is the theme: lack of qualified skilled workers. Ther is an insufficient educational system for trade education and overemphasis on ""University Education" which is largely not worth the inflated cost it represents.
 
First I'd like to say thanks to all the posters above who showed us such cool stuff. The Merlin vid was great, all the pics, I'm a little curious where that fresnel lens is. It says, "still in use", in use for what?

Every day as I go to work I see a great example of the changing times. There's a church being built, rather big building as it were but by no means what anyone would call gigantic. It's a steel building, and if a guy didn't know better, he'd say it was a warehouse. I've not seen the inside and maybe that'll be really amazing, who knows. But, when I grew up, it wasn't hard to pick a church out amongst a group of buildings. This one is hardly worthy of notice and it sits in the middle of a field.
 
Tom, your pictures are always AMAZING to look at. I currently own a Cannon T1i with a 18-55 EFS lens that came with the body. With that I am using a San Disk Ultra 15MB/s and the Extreme which is 30MB/s. I want to get a zoom lens anywhere between 200-300mm. Any suggestions????

Sorry for the slight off topic question.

Calvin
 
4Mesh said:
Every day as I go to work I see a great example of the changing times. There's a church being built, rather big building as it were but by no means what anyone would call gigantic. It's a steel building, and if a guy didn't know better, he'd say it was a warehouse. I've not seen the inside and maybe that'll be really amazing, who knows. But, when I grew up, it wasn't hard to pick a church out amongst a group of buildings. This one is hardly worthy of notice and it sits in the middle of a field.
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Paul, we have some of these here in East Tennessee. They are called Super churches. They are not built to glorify God but are built to glorify man. This is the case of two of these we have here. They started out in the 1980's as bus churches. The church that had the most buses won.

During that time I was in Cincinnati and on the ridge behind the Cincinnati-Gillbert's boring mill plant there was a church that had 2100 buses. About one per parishioner!!
 
CYanchycki said:
I currently own a Cannon T1i with a 18-55 EFS lens that came with the body. I want to get a zoom lens anywhere between 200-300mm. Any suggestions????

Calvin
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I still have my Canon film cameras but don't really know the current Canon lens lineup. Before I buy any lens though, I check the reviews on photozone.de first. Here's a link to their Canon lens section. http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos

4Mesh said:
I'm a little curious where that fresnel lens is. It says, "still in use", in use for what?
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Yeah, lighthouse would be correct. The lighthouse originally built at the mouth of Pensacola Bay in 1859 is still operational and is located on what is now NAS (Naval Air Station) Pensacola. Link to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_Light
 
CYanchycki said:
Tom, your pictures are always AMAZING to look at. I currently own a Cannon T1i with a 18-55 EFS lens that came with the body. With that I am using a San Disk Ultra 15MB/s and the Extreme which is 30MB/s. I want to get a zoom lens anywhere between 200-300mm. Any suggestions????

Sorry for the slight off topic question.

Calvin
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At the risk of being so far off topic someone deletes the thread, here's a link to The Digital Picture. Canon or Nikon lens and body reviews. Very good stuff.

This site includes direct links to B&H for pricing. And oh my, check out the javascript switcher for alternating camera settings with the test photos of the ISO board. You can change apertures, compare different lenses, etc. Simply amazing.

www.thedigitalpicture.com

Jerry, the "Bus Churches" are pretty funny!

Fresnel lens: I would not have guessed it was in a lighthouse...
 
My job takes me all over the states and one habit I picked up as a kid is when walking or driving through areas that have not yet "Urbanized/Modernized", is to look up at the buildings and admire the stonework that was once prevalent on banks, dept stores, courthouses and such.

Never ceases to amaze me the examples of craftsmanship that went into just buildings. Now days, its all prefab and the ones that are trying for the retro stone look use like a stucco covered foam.

Drive down almost any main street, look up and you will be blown away at some of the facades that were built, even in your home town...

Nodak
 
Nodak, I notice that every time I am in Grand Forks right down town. I LOVE those old buildings. We have the same in Downtown Winnipeg. The Architecture is amazing to look at. Here in Brandon we have some but not like any of the 2 mentioned. My favorite is the buildings of what used to be the Brandon Mental Health Facility. It is finally being brought back to life and slowly the College in town is moving some of there trades and classes to that place.

I had been through the building once after it was closed and it was an eerie feeling to walk the halls and stairs imagining what it was like at its peak. The oak inside was just beautiful.

Calvin
 
There is some nice stuff here in Pensacola too; Spanish presence in the area predates English settlements in the new world. Here is a statue of Spanish Conquistador Trisdan DeLuna who was the leader of a settlement here in 1560.

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