2 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

This is how we did it in the old days.  Shows a steam powered machine shop, and a guy replacing valve seats in an early Chevy small block head.  

 

https://youtu.be/a63...fo8Z8MK7U&t=705

[Samiam]

I bet the windmill guys got really pissed when steam took over. Can picture them at the local tavern crying in their beer. Telling tales about how dangerous steam is and how it will ruin the world with all the smoke and ash. They wouldn't have been that wrong about that either. But in the end steam prevailed and technology marched on. Still is.

[Dave Crevie]

For the most part, water was primary to steam power up until the 19th century. Even then, it held sway for only a comparably short time until electricity came in. Although even then, steam power was used to produce most of the electric power.

 

There is a water powered mill just a few miles from my home. Hard to believe, after seeing the surrounding forest preserve, that only a few miles in the opposite direction is the city of Chicago. A short clip of the Graue Mill, still grinding grain, and where my family always got the corn meal for our corn pudding and corn bread. 

 

https://youtu.be/6AYSi7Vk6PE?si=boeWl0LM2QgGLNLx 

 

Incidently, the mill pond, formed by the same Salt Creek that flows two blocks away from my house, has great fishing. It is loaded with panfish and bass, and you can catch an occasional Northern. All stocked by the DuPage County Forestry Dept. ( the fish don't stray far enough north to get up by me    )