Cool old picture of a trade school

[Hard H2O]

You can click it to get a better look.

Washington, D.C., circa 1905-1910. "McKinley School shop."

 

[James_Terrio]

That's cool. :thumbup: Thanks for sharing.

 

[Fiddleback]

Man, times change. What did they do with the anvils when they tore that down?

 

[Mungo Park]

Wow a whole lot of white shirts going on there, might help me, worth a try.
Cheers Ron.

 

[go mike]

Must have been loud in there!

 

[Sam Salvati]

The interesting thing to see, besides the THOUSAND interesting things to see is, they are using coal forges with no hoods of chimneys. The forges they are using uses a semi closed circuit air delivery, there is little scoop hoods that can be moved over the firepot that have suction, which is caused by the hoods being piped to the intake of a MASSIVE blower located outside. It sucks in the coal smoke and ash and then returns it back through the tuyere to each forge. It is not completely closed it allows for a slight amount of exhaust and intake of fresh air. This system is not commonly used now, but back then as far as trades schools and other large volume forge shops where many stations were needed went it was a much better option for providing quite a few coal forges with air and exhaust without jamming a bunch of holes in the ceiling . You can still find the patents for these forges, and the blower and beautifully simple piping setups. If I still had access to a welding shop, I would give building one of these forges a try, with a closed circuit blower and exhaust system.