5
Jan

The art of forging

categoriesWork                    

The boiler operator, where I work, took this picture depicting one of the manufacturing units, and it’s crew there, and won 1st place in a recent photo journalism contest in Ventura, CA for it, and I thought I would share.To be clear, I’m not one of those guys you see there (back in Pittsburgh, we used to call them mill hunky’s) doing the back breaking, dangerous work. (As I’ve described it many times to others, I’m an educated mill hunky! :)

I’m the one, standing in the [distant] background (who you can’t see), that tells manufacturing what temperatures the parts need to be heated to for forging, among other things.

The unit the crew is working on is a 50,000 pound hammer. Just picture an old time blacksmith making horse shoes using a hammer, then multiply that by 50,000 times, and you’ll get the picture.

I think it’s amazing, when you consider all the rapid advancements in technology being made today, there are still technologies around, that haven’t changed much since the 19th century.

The blast furnace is another such technology. If you ever get a chance to see one in operation, I suggest you take it. You’ll literally think you’ve been transported into the past.

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