# Welcome to the history room



## Tin Falcon

This sub fora is intended as place to pass on and discuss machining , industrial and Model engine building history. A place to post links of old machining books ,pictures of old tool factories old tool catalogs etc. Also pics of National historic sites that are metal working related. you get the picture.
Tin


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## Philjoe5

Great idea Tin.  

I've attached a pdf file for the patent of a Roberts Water motor.  I've managed to acquire one in very good condition and plan to restore it to working condition this winter.







It is designed very much like a duplex injection pump except it operates on water rather than steam pressure.

Phil 

View attachment Roberts water motor.pdf


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## GWRdriver

Yes, good idea.


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## ShopShoe

Tin,

What an excellent idea!  At first visit a subject that appeals to me would be a thread that provides capsule biographical information about some of the names I have been learning about since I started visiting here.

I don't mean an exhaustive list of everyone in the hobby, this forum. or in industry, but I would like to know more about the people that have been referenced again and again. Names that spring to my mind (most likely mis-spelled as I write this) are Elmer Verbrug and Rudy Kouphout. Add Dave Gingery and the publisher Lindsay

My starter questions:

When were (are) they active?
What did they specialize in?
What is known about their projects?
What is known about their tools and shop?
Any memorable quotations?
Is there a relevant archive that can be linked?
Is any work on public display?
If their legacy is available as purchasable material or in the public domain, who here has built one of their models or used their ideas in a new design?

Maybe this isn't feasible, but historically I am interested in the people as well as the hardware.

--ShopShoe


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## robcas631

Tin Falcon said:


> This sub fora is intended as place to pass on and discuss machining , industrial and Model engine building history. A place to post links of old machining books ,pictures of old tool factories old tool catalogs etc. Also pics of National historic sites that are metal working related. you get the picture.
> Tin


 
What started the mill or lathe? A Blacksmith with a file?


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## Herbiev

A blacksmith with a sharp cold chisel to make the file?


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## FSG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maudslay

As far as I've been able to find, Mr. Maudslay was the man who started the progression from mere good handwork to real precision. He invented the micrometer, was the first to combine the leadscrew, change gears, and slide rest to make the modern precision machine tool. He struck out on his own because his cheapass boss wouldn't give him enough of a raise to support a family, and became the foremost innovator of the technologies that were crucial to the industrial revolution. Even today's super high precision CNC whizbang gagets are merely embellishments of his fundamental designs. Watt stood on his shoulders, yet few know of him. Books about him are astronomically expensive, and few libraries even have copies that can be read in their facilities. Our hero has been supressed, and maybe we should try to bring his story into the light.


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## ShopShoe

philjoe5,

Saw you asking about your Roberts Water Motor on the other place. I'm not a a member there so I am posting this link about water engines and water motors here:

http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/POWER/waterengine/waterengine.htm

I have been intrigued by these, especially the three-cylinder versions,  and was playing with the idea of making one sometime: I think the grandkids would like to see something like this running off the garden hose on a hot day.

--ShopShoe


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## BillWood

FSG said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maudslay
> 
> As far as I've been able to find, Mr. Maudslay was the man who started the progression from mere good handwork to real precision. He invented the micrometer, was the first to combine the leadscrew, change gears, and slide rest to make the modern precision machine tool. He struck out on his own because his cheapass boss wouldn't give him enough of a raise to support a family, and became the foremost innovator of the technologies that were crucial to the industrial revolution. Even today's super high precision CNC whizbang gagets are merely embellishments of his fundamental designs. Watt stood on his shoulders, yet few know of him. Books about him are astronomically expensive, and few libraries even have copies that can be read in their facilities. Our hero has been supressed, and maybe we should try to bring his story into the light.



I havent read it but am looking out for a cheaper copy of this book - looks like it might be a good one.
*       Henry Maudslay & the Pioneers of the Machine Age                                     Paperback                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   November, 2002                                   *


            	 	 	 		 		 	         	        by 	                                                       	         	     	  		 		 			 		 		              		 		 			 			 			 				John Cantrell  			 			 		 		 		        	         		        			(Editor),         		        	     	                                                                        	         	     	  		 		 			 		 		              		 		 			 			 			 				Gillian Cookson  			 			 		 		 		        	         		        			(Editor)        		        	     	 	         		 	 		 		 	 		 		 	 




http://www.amazon.com/dp/0752427660/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


Has anybody read it ? If yes any comments  ? Worth a look ?

Bill


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## goldstar31

I sort of agree but after a lot more years of study, I tend to go back further to an earlier time of Megalithic Man and his 'Yard' and things like the work of professor Thom and surprisingly, into the Book of Kings and our Mr Tubal Cain and perhaps the legendary Hiram Abif and certainly real Hiram, King of Tyre. 

What has to be remembered is that the so called Great Inventors were only developing from the great stone masons of the past who built the cathedrals and perhaps the Arab influence on Western Art. 

I lived- or I still do, live on the banks of the River Tyne where much of the Industrial Revolution  came but it was all really as Shakespeare described it of literature- a Nest of Singing Birds.  Stephenson- George? Did he really do it all himself? Well, the railways- all 4 feet 8 and a half inches? Certainly not the Lad from Canny Wylam on the Tyne but Roman chariot gauge. Who was before the guys who made my boundary wall- ex from Mr Hadrian- I haven't a clue but possibly from Egypt.

Don't be carried away with others- including me. Read it up, spend a little money and enjoy every minute of your studies. Go to Europe, visit the cathedrals, go to the Alhambra, go to Ancient Roman and - my Northumberland with its ancients Druidical heritage. 

Meantime, the Compliments of the Season

Norman


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## rlukens

This may be too "modern" as history goes. 
Several years ago while traveling through Vermont, I was lucky enough to stumble on this:  "The American Precision Museum, housed in the original Robbins & Lawrence Armory, now holds the largest collection of historically significant machine tools in the nation."
I spent an entire afternoon there and could have spent days. If your anyway near it, I highly recommend it.

http://www.americanprecision.org/


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## oilmac

Henry Maudsley was a wonderful man, and his works at Lambeth in London was the training ground of many brilliant engineers who were his pupils, Amongst others who worked in his factory were Naysmith the scotsman who invented the pillar shaping machine (The normal design of shaper still in use today,) Others were Whitworth who invented the travelling head shaper, And the greatest of all Richard Roberts, who invented the planing machine,
 It is of note that the production of true flat faces in those far off days was a stumbling block to engine and machine production,  At this time the planing of large engine components of a heavy nature was a real bugbear, Until the invention of the Wall slotting Machine in the works of James Watt at Birmingham, It is sad that the true inventor of this machine , plus the horizontal wall planing machine was William Murdock, a Scotsmam who was one of Watts colleagues,    These machines enabled the machining of large castings which were clamped to a stationary bed plate, or in the case of the wall slotting machine , the castings were mounted on a table which was fed past the travelling tool block,  As there was not in those days enough horse power to move heavy castings back and forward on the table of a conventional pattern of planing machine.
 Watts sons greatly overlooked any of his many inventions in the story of Bolton & Watt   Some years later in the works Of Maudsley Sons & field, another genius W.W. Hulse, ( Who was married to Whitworths daughter)  designed and built, a very large combined  vertical & horizontal planing machine , combining the best of both of Murdocks two machines , Some of this pattern of planing & slotting machine in an advanced pattern were manufactured up until the early 1960 period, all be it with a modern powerful electrical drive, by Loudon Brothers machine tool builders in Johnstone near Glasgow.
  The last big wall slotting machine was scrapped in Paisley Scotland, in 1974, Thus ending the direct link going back to the era of William Murdock, A great shame,  this old machine had been constructed by the predecessors of Loudon Brothers a firm called J.McCarthur & Co.   Should you folks be able to lay your hands on a superb book Machine Tools by Steed , published about 1965 It tells of the many wonderful things achieved in Maudsleys works.  He also seems to have been a jovial happy sort of fellow.


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## Dubi

goldstar31 said:


> I sort of agree but after a lot more years of study, I tend to go back further to an earlier time of Megalithic Man and his 'Yard' and things like the work of professor Thom and surprisingly, into the Book of Kings and our Mr Tubal Cain and perhaps the legendary Hiram Abif and certainly real Hiram, King of Tyre.
> 
> What has to be remembered is that the so called Great Inventors were only developing from the great stone masons of the past who built the cathedrals and perhaps the Arab influence on Western Art.
> 
> I lived- or I still do, live on the banks of the River Tyne where much of the Industrial Revolution  came but it was all really as Shakespeare described it of literature- a Nest of Singing Birds.  Stephenson- George? Did he really do it all himself? Well, the railways- all 4 feet 8 and a half inches? Certainly not the Lad from Canny Wylam on the Tyne but Roman chariot gauge. Who was before the guys who made my boundary wall- ex from Mr Hadrian- I haven't a clue but possibly from Egypt.
> 
> Don't be carried away with others- including me. Read it up, spend a little money and enjoy every minute of your studies. Go to Europe, visit the cathedrals, go to the Alhambra, go to Ancient Roman and - my Northumberland with its ancients Druidical heritage.
> 
> Meantime, the Compliments of the Season
> 
> Norman


Lovely post, food for thought. A very happy Christmas to you and your family despite the virus circumstances.


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## goldstar31

Dubi

Thank you for your kind response and may I wish you and your family not only a very Happy Christmas- or perhaps the Christ Mass and a better New Year.
I can see a little bright light at the end of the tunnel with Covid- 19 with the news that vaccines  seem to be  anywhere successful  between 70+ and 90+ success rates and moreover are going to be relatively cheap to get.  As a rather large shareholder in Astra Zeneca( ahem?), I'm glad that costs in poorer countries should enable them to have a safer present and a future. I simply cannot wait as a very vulnerable( and venerable???) old 90 year old to have a jab in my arm- perhaps 2021 arrives.
Somewhat selfishly, my thoughts are for those like my son in law who is a senior consultant heart surgeon working in a Covid-19 hospital ward.
I did get an invitation to go to the Far East and Indonesia included. I wanted to see the attractions of further travel.  I managed HongKong and onto Fiji- and regrettably that is that.
You see my eyes are now so poor. So I hope that I have made sense despite age and infirmities but wish you well.

Norman


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## Dubi

goldstar31 said:


> Dubi
> 
> Thank you for your kind response and may I wish you and your family not only a very Happy Christmas- or perhaps the Christ Mass and a better New Year.
> I can see a little bright light at the end of the tunnel with Covid- 19 with the news that vaccines  seem to be  anywhere successful  between 70+ and 90+ success rates and moreover are going to be relatively cheap to get.  As a rather large shareholder in Astra Zeneca( ahem?), I'm glad that costs in poorer countries should enable them to have a safer present and a future. I simply cannot wait as a very vulnerable( and venerable???) old 90 year old to have a jab in my arm- perhaps 2021 arrives.
> Somewhat selfishly, my thoughts are for those like my son in law who is a senior consultant heart surgeon working in a Covid-19 hospital ward.
> I did get an invitation to go to the Far East and Indonesia included. I wanted to see the attractions of further travel.  I managed HongKong and onto Fiji- and regrettably that is that.
> You see my eyes are now so poor. So I hope that I have made sense despite age and infirmities but wish you well.
> 
> Norman


Good morning Norman, It crossed my mind last night, after reading your very interesting post, that as you may not be able to come this way I could send you photographs that I have taken in the Far East.
If you can send me an e-mail address I will send you photos from Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei etc.
warm regards, Dubi.


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## goldstar31

I think that Dubi is what w e Westerners call Dubai? I overnighted on my way to a Masonic Meeting in HongKong. I'm a very lowly Provincial Grand Lodge Officer with connections  with things 'Oriental' as well as what used to bre called 'India'
Hence the Royal Air Force 31( the Goldstars) motto which translates from the Latin as :-

First in the Indian Skies

Best Wishes

Norman


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## cds4byu

oilmac said:


> Should you folks be able to lay your hands on a superb book Machine Tools by Steed , published about 1965 It tells of the many wonderful things achieved in Maudsleys works.  He also seems to have been a jovial happy sort of fellow.



The book "A History of Machine Tools 1700-1910", by W Steeds, is available online for about $40 or £40 from various sellers.

Carl


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## GrahamJTaylor49

goldstar31 said:


> I sort of agree but after a lot more years of study, I tend to go back further to an earlier time of Megalithic Man and his 'Yard' and things like the work of professor Thom and surprisingly, into the Book of Kings and our Mr Tubal Cain and perhaps the legendary Hiram Abif and certainly real Hiram, King of Tyre.
> 
> What has to be remembered is that the so called Great Inventors were only developing from the great stone masons of the past who built the cathedrals and perhaps the Arab influence on Western Art.
> 
> I lived- or I still do, live on the banks of the River Tyne where much of the Industrial Revolution  came but it was all really as Shakespeare described it of literature- a Nest of Singing Birds.  Stephenson- George? Did he really do it all himself? Well, the railways- all 4 feet 8 and a half inches? Certainly not the Lad from Canny Wylam on the Tyne but Roman chariot gauge. Who was before the guys who made my boundary wall- ex from Mr Hadrian- I haven't a clue but possibly from Egypt.
> 
> Don't be carried away with others- including me. Read it up, spend a little money and enjoy every minute of your studies. Go to Europe, visit the cathedrals, go to the Alhambra, go to Ancient Roman and - my Northumberland with its ancients Druidical heritage.
> 
> Meantime, the Compliments of the Season
> 
> Norman


Tubal Cain, the first artificer in metals, and Hiram Abif, and the Temple in Jerusalem. Regards,
W.Bro. Graham T.


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## goldstar31

Thanks W/Bro but I'm one of the local Provincial Grand Lodge- but remain a Bro.
S&F

Norman
PPro GPurs

PS

I hadn't realised that you played the sax. Apart from anything e;se, my late wife played bari sax but also a contra bass one.  She was a mate of the late  Don L.  Ashton  who also wrote on Stephenson's and Walshaert's Gear.


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## GrahamJTaylor49

goldstar31 said:


> Thanks W/Bro but I'm one of the local Provincial Grand Lodge- but remain a Bro.
> S&F
> 
> Norman
> PPro GPurs
> 
> PS
> 
> I hadn't realised that you played the sax. Apart from anything e;se, my late wife played bari sax but also a contra bass one.  She was a mate of the late  Don L.  Ashton  who also wrote on Stephenson's and Walshaert's Gear.


Loved playing the Alto and Tenner sax but unfortunately developed severe arthritis in my left wrist and it was agony
to support the instrument so to avoid temptation I sold both instruments. Since then I have had an operation on
the wrist and the surgeon  have removed the trapizoid bone and replaced it with some tendon from my lower
arm. The hand / wrist now work beautifully and I'm looking at getting another tenner sax.


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## terryd

oilmac said:


> Henry Maudsley was a wonderful man, and his works at Lambeth in London was the training ground of many brilliant engineers who were his pupils, Amongst others who worked in his factory were Naysmith the scotsman who invented the pillar shaping machine (The normal design of shaper still in use today,) Others were Whitworth who invented the travelling head shaper, And the greatest of all Richard Roberts, who invented the planing machine,
> It is of note that the production of true flat faces in those far off days was a stumbling block to engine and machine production,  At this time the planing of large engine components of a heavy nature was a real bugbear, Until the invention of the Wall slotting Machine in the works of James Watt at Birmingham, It is sad that the true inventor of this machine , plus the horizontal wall planing machine was William Murdock, a Scotsmam who was one of Watts colleagues,    These machines enabled the machining of large castings which were clamped to a stationary bed plate, or in the case of the wall slotting machine , the castings were mounted on a table which was fed past the travelling tool block,  As there was not in those days enough horse power to move heavy castings back and forward on the table of a conventional pattern of planing machine.
> Watts sons greatly overlooked any of his many inventions in the story of Bolton & Watt   Some years later in the works Of Maudsley Sons & field, another genius W.W. Hulse, ( Who was married to Whitworths daughter)  designed and built, a very large combined  vertical & horizontal planing machine , combining the best of both of Murdocks two machines , Some of this pattern of planing & slotting machine in an advanced pattern were manufactured up until the early 1960 period, all be it with a modern powerful electrical drive, by Loudon Brothers machine tool builders in Johnstone near Glasgow.
> The last big wall slotting machine was scrapped in Paisley Scotland, in 1974, Thus ending the direct link going back to the era of William Murdock, A great shame,  this old machine had been constructed by the predecessors of Loudon Brothers a firm called J.McCarthur & Co.   Should you folks be able to lay your hands on a superb book Machine Tools by Steed , published about 1965 It tells of the many wonderful things achieved in Maudsleys works.  He also seems to have been a jovial happy sort of fellow.



Indeed he was an incredibly talented 'mechanician' using the Victorian term for the technician engineer.  He started his career with an apprenticeship in the workshops of the famed London locksmith Joseph Bramah.  Bramah was also an hydraulic engineer who invented the hydraulic press among other things, he was extremely demading in his standards and even today an outstanding example of something is often descried as a 'real Bramah'.

When Bramah refused Maudslay a promotion and pay rise Maudslay left and founded his own engineering company.  He worked with and influenced many eminent engineers of the day as you so rightly point out.   I went to an exhibition of his work in the British Science Musem in South Kensington.  While there among other things I was able to inspect one of his screwcutting lathes, possibly the one that Maudslay himself worked at.  It was eye opening to see such a beautiful machine.  The flat surfaces were just that and finished to a burnished glass effect, much nicer than todays ground finishes and the fit of components was incredibly precise and would shame all but the very best that we have today.  It should be pointed out though that Maudslay was not necessarily the inventor of the screwcutting lathe with leadscrew and change gears as is commonly accepted.  Jesse Ramsden a celebrated instrument maker working in london developed such a machine earlier than Maudslay he published drawings of he macine in 1777 having developed it years earlier ( he also developed a micrometer screw for adjustmen before Maudslay):

_"The lathe for the circular dividing engine's screw used a leadscrew to traverse a toolholder sliding on a triangular bar. The leadscrew had a pitch error of 1%, which Ramsden corrected on the workpiece by means of change wheels of 198 and 200 teeth (with an idler gear between). "_ - Graces Guide

At the exhibition there was also a model of the admiralty's block making production line from Portsmouth which he developed with Marc Brunel, (a famed engineer who was a refugee from the French revolution), a mass production line producing near identical interchangeable parts which preceded Henry Ford by over a century and Remington's manufactory.  The story goes that Brunel approached Maudslay to engineer the machinery for the system and then approached the Admiralty. Apparently Brunel showed Maudslay his initial drawings without explaining the product upon which Maudslay stated that they were for a block making system - he was so very analytical.  I perhaps should explain for the non seafaring members here that the sailing warships of the day used up to a thousand 'running blocks' for the rope rigging and these blocks frequently wore out and the navy had many ships.  The block making plant and it's machinery reduced the manufacturing time for pulley blocks by a factor of 10 and was producing 130,000 blocks a year in full production.

This however is only a tiny part of Maudslays achievements and it is well worth reading his entry in Samuel Smiles great book "Industrial Biography".

As an aside, another little known but important character from the early 17th Century (C1620) is Dud Dudley, who, it is claimed pioneered the use of coal (possibly coke) in the production of iron instead of charcoal as the forests of the UK were being depleted to the extent that there was a threat of a possible shortage of suitable timber for shipbuilding.  His autobiography "Metallum Martis" tells a story that would make a great film and is well worth reading and includes a description of his escape from a Parlamentarian prison in the English Civil war.  Dudley himself was the illegitimate child of the Earl of Dudley born at Dudley at the centre of the English Midlands 'Black Country' in the late 16th century (C1580).

The recent history of engineeering technology is fascinating (and so is it's prehistory).

TerryD


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## goldstar31

Christine bought contra bass, contra alto  but started to prepare for old age9 which she never really reached) but bought, but on a whim she bought a lightweight 'plastic' tenor.  She also bough- and loved soprano saxes. She also bought closed hole clarinets and had an 'armoury' of the things. Paul Harvey had led the way in that direction and transcribed La Forza Destino for her on the bari sax. She was godmother to some of the kids from the Fairer sax Quartet. Was great pals with Sarah Markham and Richard Ingham who wrote( with Don Ashton) the Book of the Saxophone. My daughter who is also a dental consultant got the instruments to go with her peter Eaton Elite B flat and the 7/8ths Buthner Grand piano.
I know some of the 'surplus' instruments are unsold. My son and daughter and daughter in law got -eventually all the cars and the cherished family 'number plates'
Now I'm back to nursing an almost classic Mercedes SLK230 and a Lotus Elise SE. 
I've given up driving now.


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## goldstar31

I had an almost non extent education and what there was started in 1917 - and I was like the rest of the County of Durham  a little Communist and whatever was there would lead me to being a Stakhanovite down the local coal mines.  I lived within a couple of miles from what is still known as 'Little Moscow' and oddly the other way from that other illiterate namely George Stephenson  who copied what the local blacksmith thought  and made 'The Rocket'. His son Robert and I shared possibly the same chair in Newcastle upon Tyne's brilliant Literary and Philosophical Society's Library. Obviously  with quite a few. years spacing. My lunch times would be spent  in Newcastle's Exhibition Park Museum( later to become the Discovery museum) to e njoy looking at the  first turbine ship- the Turbinia, assorted ancient steam locomotives and what I believe was/is a Holtzapffel Ornamental turning lathe. For a little diversion,, I would crank the handle of the model of. the Swing Bridge which  was on the identical  position where the bog oak piles of the much, much older Roman Bridge. Of course the extracted rotten timber piles made wonderful  picture framing for my late and most lamented youth club leader who introduced me to such wondrous things such as a rather nice old Bronze age. skeleton and the opportunity to play an interesting game of clock golf arounf a couple of adult cists and a little on presumably for a child. Of course 'green stick bones' don't survive too well.  Again He had a fascinating trepanned more recent skull with the tiny chip in it. It was many years until I was fortunate in marrying a lady with two heads. Now my daughter has inherited the same one that still lives in a Jacob's Cream Cracker box. 
Somewhere in what is called the Spear side of the family is an entry for Ferryhill and nearby Shildon.
I've never found out really how much old Sam contributed Sans Pareill in the steam trials in which Rocket won. That was Timothy Hackwort's engine. Sam certainly ended his days as an engine man as his blacksmithing had sort of become too much for him.
I keep going on to relatives to find out what people actually did rather than having  birt, siring a tribe of millions of kids and then die of understandably extreme exhaustion 

Enough for now?

Norman


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## Dubi

goldstar31 said:


> I think that Dubi is what w e Westerners call Dubai? I overnighted on my way to a Masonic Meeting in HongKong. I'm a very lowly Provincial Grand Lodge Officer with connections  with things 'Oriental' as well as what used to bre called 'India'
> Hence the Royal Air Force 31( the Goldstars) motto which translates from the Latin as :-
> 
> First in the Indian Skies
> 
> Best Wishes
> 
> Norman


Good morning Norman, Dubi is Hebrew for Bear. I worked in Israel for many years before coming to Indonesia. I have been here just over four years.

warm regards,
Dubi


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## goldstar31

Dubi said:


> Good morning Norman, Dubi is Hebrew for Bear. I worked in Israel for many years before coming to Indonesia. I have been here just over four years.
> 
> warm regards,
> Dubi


The mouth of the River Tyne was guarded by a Roman fort called Caer Ursa which is Latin for 'Home of the bear'


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## goldstar31

goldstar31 said:


> The mouth of the River Tyne was guarded by a Roman fort called Caer Ursa which is Latin for 'Home of the bear'


So what about a bit of blood and snots, a bit of mysticism and SEX?????
Well, at the mouth of the River came the Vikings bent on rape, theft and pillage seeking out what was left of the village virgins that were left after the local lads had got tanked up on mthe Local Lindisfarne Mead on Holy Island  supervised by the local dignitary, The Venerable Bed e who is allege d to. have brought Christianity to the populace and actually founded a monastery not far up river from the mouth of the Tyne.

At the other end( well the tidal end) lived none other than George Stephenson later to be copied and copied as designer and builder of the Rocket.  Not at the time that the. Viking came but they had blue eyes wheras the locals were little, darkish skinnedand black hair.  Funny my Mum was little, etc etc but bDad and I are'were tall and-- blue eyedNothing that anyon can do about it but there.
When dear Old The Vereal Bede popped his cloggs and headed off to imortality- or immorality the local goodies carted his body  past where the local Laidly or Lambton Worm  or serpent lived until it was finally cut up into 3 halves by the local big shot who had come back from the Crusades.  Returning back to the script, Bede was intered in the Durham Cathedral which was built by--- the Normans(we get around).

So after all these hundreds of years it is claimed that Bede's Body has never rotted. No one has checked but why spol the script.So somewhere( waving of flags, honking of car horns and the clattering of horses hooves and enter 'the wife's lot' Who had Alice in Wonderland  and the the Queen's Mother.
So they built a castle which true to a good story- fell down. So  I got nothing apart from a wonderful bride!
Whilst all that was going on- Robert Stephenson- George's Bonny Lad was building railway sand bridges for people to walk or ride across and above railways would run.  One is still there, the Germans had a pot shot at it- but it is still there. What is next is a rather charming Swing Bridge which allows BIG ships to pass. They pulled up the remains of the Roman wooden piles where their bbridge stood.  Made nice picture frames- but I digress.  But a son ofa ca John Dobson used walk from home across it to a huge warehouse which cotray to  belief held Tyneside's largest export. No oy coal but-----Human urine.
This day- it went off Bang and the bang was so lous it could be heard in British West T+Hartlepool whose only( ?) claim to fame is hanging a French monkey as a spy although he was only a cabin boy. Any how John Dobson's son could only be identified  - by his house. keys.
My late wife? no- another day. Then came urbinia making rings around Queen's Vostoria;s Great British Fleet  and my story of Nelly's Moss Lakes and electricity generating and then the first light bulbs and my connection with being violently sick  over his granddaughter in law on one of those return of the Latter Day Vikings back to Norway.

Hstory is fun but never the way that they taught me

Norman


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## fcheslop

As an aside the collection of urine was often known as the Butlers pension and clergy pee the most prised due to the rich diet, 
The Hartlepool story  is probably just bad publicity from the makems and takems or may have been a powder monkey??? 
Just another  useless fact from my befuddled brain


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## GrahamJTaylor49

What a wonderful example of devine twaddle and a possible start of the first chapter of a sequel to
that excellent book "1066 and all that".


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## goldstar31

but Graham you have tto believe  things because they are in the newspapers,
Well yesterday, the news came that the World came to a brief stop over the death of a man who could kick a piece of leather through a pair of wooden poles.  Wow!
Yesterday, the news came of a poor lady having a miscarriage. Sadly, this happens to many ladies.
Yesterday was Black Friday- and even the words bring acrimony in another context because we have a good friday over a person who is claimed to have come alive again-- and all the painters hundreds of years later depicted the scene.  There was, I have to remind people that there were not news papers and even if there were people could not read. Apparently the claim is that the ability to read is a new thing-- but being a sceptic I have reservations. But Black Friday came and one company disclosed to me that more than 3 million parcels were delivered by their staff- and I would add- scathingly 'never paid for'. Well not yet!
From the sam e source came the news that one of the guinea pigs had died---FACT!
Today, for us toothless gibbering old fools there is the welcome news that we are going to be given free Vitamin D tablets that we will have strengthened bones, be resistant to  and stronger teeth. I have a bit of doubt about  trying to dissolve a tablet in a glass tumbler with teeth in.
Sommwe are going to get the Xmas or Chistmas to tell the World yet again about a little Jewish boy who attracted three kings and three wise men because there was a star that regularly appeared but why at the Winter Solstice? That is the time when the locals go out and beat the bushes so that the cuckoos will wake up and start the beginning of Spring and a New Year- we hope.
Me, on a Black  Friday hadn't an Black Label but  the two of us old dodderers were happy to help save the planet by drinking the remaining 2/3rds of a bottle of equally- well almost Scotch so that the bottle could be re-cycled on Tuesday.
So far, it is only the sad death of the little guinea pigthat has a meaning-- to my two little grandchildren.
As the two old wearies were freemasons, the conversation was secret( ?drivel)

Now I'm getting nothing for all this but two of the richest people in the UK have written fiction about a character called Mr Bean and the other about a Wizard and a scarface called Harry Potter!

Be ieve it or not


----------



## GrahamJTaylor49

It's a pity about the guinea pigs and their loss to your grandchildren, as for the rich, well the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as the old song goes. I see that Sir Philip Green has at last lost his empire, but I bet that he won't loose his yachts or his billions, and sod the workers. I doubt that he's a Freemason. I get on very well in my Lodge and have a lot of very good friends who's word is their bond.
Anyway, less of this banter and back to the Stuart Turner Major Beam Engine. Since the lock down I have managed to get more done than I have in the last 18 years. The Watts parallel motion was a bit of a sod as my lathe is a bit on the large size for very small items. But got there in the end by modifying the components.


----------



## MRA

fcheslop said:


> As an aside the collection of urine was often known as the Butlers pension and clergy pee the most prised due to the rich diet,



It was used in the processing of wool.  There's a cotton-spinning museum here (Helmshore - complete with full-length mules frames which are quite a thing) which developed from an earlier wool business; some of the fulling gear is still there.  Apparently Methodist urine was worth more, as they didn't drink.  Maybe that meant that the urine was more concentrated, as it wasn't washed out in a tide of 17 pints of Holt's best.


----------



## goldstar31

As for urine, it also went into explosives hence a young son of the Architect John Dobson.  Again what is  sort challenging is dog's poo  for tanning the leather  for posh ladies gloves and  bing Crosbie's and Bob Hope's 'Morocco Bound'

The intriguing uses of urine is or was tempering steel. According to legend the most desirable liquid was from ginger headed virgin boys.  With a father a blacksmith, I have contributed to the tempering tank despite the fact that I was never ginger headed. It was a pleasanter alternative to the Roman way of things of plunging a red hot sword into one's least popular slave. 
So it is autumn( a frosty one) with my chestnut btrees flinging conkers  all over. Apparently, instead of making childhood games they were used to make cordite. Now I have pigeons- suggestions might be welcomed!


----------



## fcheslop

Sorry my knowledge about the use of pee only goes back to Roman times and I certainly wouldna want to wear purple then.
Pigeons make good pies and rabbits have a humped back to keep the crust out of the gravy
So back to the Glasgow engine before the border is closed
Keep well and safe if not sober. Only jealous as sister bacteria is running a dry house this end


----------



## goldstar31

Now now Frazer- none of this drifting back  from the fleshpots of British West Hartlepool.
As for Rome, the purple was was from boiling shells from shellfish and to go and get the shells you would risk malaria from the Pontine Marshes. Malaria was rife in that part of the Mediterranean right up to- at least WW1. My uncle was in Salonica as an ambulance driver and he ended up with a war pension- a miserable one- of course.  Oddly his service number. was 1918- in the RAMC- Rob All My Comrades.
Glasgow, ? I'd rather go North of the Highland Line. 

Each to his own though

Best Wishes

N


----------



## fcheslop

The urine was to fix the dye and also used to wash garments in , Although my memory is be a bit confused.
The Glasgow engine is considered a national treasure although I have had to alter it a wee bit due to the scale Im working at and to make the water jacket was becoming a lifes to short exercise and it may not have had one originally .Lord Kelvin may have had a finger in its addition
Flesh pots in BWH now now lets keep it clean





						University of Glasgow - The Hunterian - Collections - Collections Summaries - Scientific Instruments - Robert Stirling's Model Air Engine
					






					www.gla.ac.uk


----------



## Dubi

goldstar31 said:


> The mouth of the River Tyne was guarded by a Roman fort called Caer Ursa which is Latin for 'Home of the bear'


Hello Norman, I wish you a peaceful Sunday and hope all is well with you and the family. What was the reason for the naming, the name of the Legion or just straight forward military practice?


----------



## goldstar31

Dubi said:


> Hello Norman, I wish you a peaceful Sunday and hope all is well with you and the family. What was the reason for the naming, the name of the Legion or just straight forward military practice?


Ouch! Unfortunately it is the wrong question- I have no idea of who garrisoned the roman Wall then although I have heard that it was the 'Arbs' and also the French. Again,  there is mention of the 9th Legion. I simply too old, now without transport, down to a disability scooter and almost blind with macular degeneration.
What I can tell you is that the Roman fort of Caeer Ursa Caer Ursa is NOT on the Roman Wall.  It is separated as the later folk son 'Water of Tyne'  as 'I cannot get to my truelove if I would die as the eaters of Tyne run between THee and me'
South shields site if the fort are only yard between North Shields but a journey of some 80 kilometres between the two- with the Roman Wall on the North side- to the nearest bridging point of Newcastle upon Tyne- now and then. The nearest brisge to the sea was  the replica of the Sydney Harbour bridge, the Swing Brisge( built over the Roman bog oak wooden piles and the High level Bridge which was designed and built by the son of the early railway pioneer of Rocket fame- George Stephenson. He, incidentally was born in a cottage  at the extreme end of the tidal part of the Tyne. You CAN  navigate around the bridge on thee Spring tides w hich ironically happen once a Lunar Month. I've done it!
So knowing the size of a Roman galley having done a first on what was probably St Paul's or Saul of Tarsis- isn't that big.
Complicated isn't it?

But then the Roman or Hadrian's Walis- of 72 miles n't the furthest North into what is now Northumberland and still in England but there is a Turf wall in Scotland much further North.


----------



## Steamchick

Herbiev said:


> A blacksmith with a sharp cold chisel to make the file?


The man who made files was named "Filer" - after his trade. I am descended from one. Must be where I get my penchant for making swarf.... Filer is a name traced to Cornwall. And yes, he was a blacksmith - made his own forged steel, cut the teeth with a cold chisel, hardened and tempered the files and other tools. (chisels, punches) and possibly was the "toolmaker" for the picks and drills for tin mining etc. that goes back millenia in Cornwall. It is even rumoured that (From what my Dad told me... I think - maybe remembered incorrectly, so please correct me with the facts!) Joseph of Arimathea traded with Cornwall to buy their tin, and in one of his trips to England he brought the boy Jesus to these shores..... But I don't think there is any authentication of these Cornish tales? 
As Jesus' father was Joseph the Carpenter, I'm sure most carpenters also had (man-powered) wood turning lathes - and Jesus would have been taught his father's trade. Curious how we can find machining ("probably") in such curious instances - even if it was machining wood? Wood turned bowls and cups would have been well prized and valuable "back in those days"... so it is not inconceivable that the Holy Grail was a turned wood cup - I.E. a machined item - and possibly even made by Jesus himself? ( - and something he regarded as special? - or maybe just a regular "shop bought" cup...?).  But being wood, (Cedar and Olive wood were common local woods) it therefore may have rotted in someplace unknown and no longer exist... but nice to think that Indiana Jones found it!
Back to the plot - I guess that some bright spark tried to machine copper, brass, gold, or silver on a wood lathe - and eventually decided that spinning thin copper and its alloys was the way to go to make domestic vessels.... But our beloved garage bench tools derive from that source as far as I was taught. Incidentally, the wood lathe probably derived from the potter's wheel.... or Quorn - the hand powered rotating grinding wheel (for Corn)....? 
What a weird digression - must have drunk something... - Hope it it not too far removed from the idea of this thread!
K2


----------



## goldstar31

I alway thought that it came from the French and earlier- from the Latin.
Digressing somewhat, there were  TWO languages running together at the time of the Norman  invasion of 1066( and all that).  French was spoken by the nobleman whilst a form of earl English was spoken by the cottars, borders and the rest of the riffraff.  Hence the expression by hook or by croook which allowed the peasants to pull down and burn  mostly rotten wood- owned by the  king via his barons.
 As for the Joseph the Carpenter- I have my doubts.  I think that the family of Jesus were a lot better qualified that first imagined.  Obviously they were a nomadic lot and it is clear that St Paul previously Saul of Tarsis was not only a tent maker but he was also a lawyer. Again the Jury is out for Mary Magdalene, probably the wife of Jesus and if the French are to believed, there is the existence of a 'Black Madonna'
I've been in Cathar country- you know the 'Perfect ones' and that is what they believed. There seems to be a linkage , perhaps them with them with the  what eventually became the Knights Templar attempted extermination on Friday the 13th. Of course there were TWO Popes exiting at the same time.  Shades of 'Sur le Pont D'Avignon' I actually have been 'Sous le Pont' and that was where and probably still is where the Gypsies gathered. Of course there is African or Arab blood there  but Willian the Conqueror or Wilhe lm le Batard had , it is said, a man of viking blood as a father and that his mother was raped.
So everyone has a chance of being right


----------



## Steamchick

Hi again Goldstar. I have no idea of earlier linguistic roots of the word file/filer, just that a smith who made files became known as "Filer".
Incidentally, on a visit to the South coast of Ireland, we were informed - at Crook lighthouse - that the point and lighthouse the other side of the bay was Hook. So sailors use to say that "by Hook or by Crook" they would reach safe harbour. Meaning that whether the wind blew from East, South or West they could make a safe passage. A Northerly gale would be an off-shore wind so they could make safe anchorage in the lee of the cliffs, until the wind direction shifted.  I have never heard of your alternative hook and Crook idea. But I previously thought it was a shepherds term for the Crook being a large hook for catching sheep. As the Crook is symbolic in the Christian church I had also heard of some reference to that... but too far back to remember.... (May be a good thing to forget some of the rubbish in the grey matter!).


robcas631 said:


> What started the mill or lathe? A Blacksmith with a file?


It is very doubtful that a file applied to metal in a wood lathe was the development of the metal lathe, as wood turning using metal tools goes bake so far in history... as does graving, which was the first lathe work I was taught as a child (by my Grandfather - making 6BA screws from stock brass for clocks...).
For those who don't know. (Norman, please correct my "folklaw" if incorrect). Graving is the application  of a sharp tool to scrape away a sliver of metal. -as in the verb/noun "engraving" (spell check can do that one - Hoorah!). Graving on a shaft or rotating lump of metal is akin to wood turning, so is a natural development - perhaps first used just for decoration on cylindrical objects like candlesticks?  Or maybe spun objects came first? - and lathe graving developed when a careless spinner cut the metal with an edge on his forming tool, and developed graving for decoration? Later, when people  thought of making other shapes graving developed with harder tools on better metal alloys to develop metal turning. Eventually, with clock making being the first "high tech" need for repeatable machining, the modern lathe naturally evolved.
On the origins of the drill, and milling machine, I think stone masons back in the time pre-Moses in Egyptian quarries were drilling deep holes in rock, with bronze drills? Or were they flint-tipped bronze shafts? (The first ceramic tipped tools!). The common Egyptian Rock being a sandstone and relatively soft. Possibly there is a Mason who can explain a correct history? All this pre-dates Greek and Roman machine engineering by millenia.
Thanks for this thread - the history is an interesting aspect to machining.
K2


----------



## terryd

fcheslop said:


> The urine was to fix the dye and also used to wash garments in , Although my memory is be a bit confused.
> The Glasgow engine is considered a national treasure although I have had to alter it a wee bit due to the scale Im working at and to make the water jacket was becoming a lifes to short exercise and it may not have had one originally .Lord Kelvin may have had a finger in its addition
> Flesh pots in BWH now now lets keep it clean
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> University of Glasgow - The Hunterian - Collections - Collections Summaries - Scientific Instruments - Robert Stirling's Model Air Engine
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.gla.ac.uk


 Hi,

Urine was used for many things apart from acting as a Mordant to fix and brighten colours, another use was as a source for saltpetre (potassium nitrate) an essential ingredient of gunpowder aka black powder.  However niether usine or saltpetre is definitely not explosive by itself it needs the addition of sulphur and powdered charcoal in critical measure to become 'explosive'.  Actually gunpowder does not explode it just burns rapidly hence the burning lines of gunpowder seen in many 'Westerns',  in order to cause an explosion it needs to be in a strong container.  for the latter purpose it was moistly animal urine that was used but bat guano also contains quite a lot as well and this was mined from their caves.

Urine was also used as a cleaning agent as it contains ammonia and this will remove grease and dirt, apparently the ancient Greeks encouraged it's use as a tooth whitener.


----------



## goldstar31

Hi Ken

I somehow doubt that the average Freemason will have the first clue about tools in Ancient Egypt 
However, I have my normal drinking date with a Grand Lodge Office in the UGLE( I'm only a Provincial one) but he is also a member of a research Lodge in the Scottish Constitution. 
What you will get from the Ritual concerns the Building of the Temple of Solomon and the traditional two hollow pillars which were cast to hold the Jewish Scriptures.  The Ritual really moves to the English Guild System of the Apprentice, the Journeyman or Day paid man and then the Master.

Not much help, I'm afraid. There is however a vast amount of Masonic Research by such people as Knight and Lomas of Bradford University.  Their publishings are certainly not secret and quite absorbing. Enjoy them .

I can, however, give you a lead s I actually 'grew up' with a Bronze Age skeleton!  He or she came from being unearthed at the sandhills between Greenside and Winlaton. Will A Cocks ( of the Bagpipe Museum in Morpeth) had the slelton and 2 sandstone cists and one smaller one for a child. It's bones would be 'Greenstick' and would be long gone. On Mr Cocks death in St Mary's Terrace Ryton they would have gone to the Blackgates Museum in Newcastle.

The other skeleton and stone cist were in the Hancock Museum in Newcastle and I recall it was put outside complete with a  food jar and as it was University Rag Week some wit had added a half consumed glass milk bottle and a half eaten - with teeth marks!   Probably the Late and much Loved  Dr Christine Wennington Alder( Then Atkinson) had a hand in it.  She had a spare skull which my daughter has now. So you have a firm lead but there are no tools. There is also a female mummy on the Hancock.

Going back, there was/is gold roughly on the 3 degree line  and copper in Llandudno and tin in Cornwall and Ihave no doubt that it all was exported in Europe anyway. It was an important export and done by boys in Roman Times until  the seams went under the Irish Sea.  The Cornish tin was, as we know. also subject to flooding.

Of course there is the frozen man  who body is was removed from arguably  Austria or Italy but  is in  now in Italy but-- has a metal arrowhead stuck in his back. 
I looked at photos of a cist elsewhere in - or near Simonsid, Rothbury where there are cup and ring markings on Garleigh Moor but the cist is not dug out like the ones of my youth.

About as far as I can go but- further North  in College Valley in Cheviot( with crashed B-17) it is Druidical at=rea.

Hope you have enjoyed a it though a bit- oh damn, the Egyptians also trepanned heads like my daughtr's on in a Jacobs Cream Cracker box.


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> So what about a bit of blood and snots, a bit of mysticism and SEX?????
> Well, at the mouth of the River came the Vikings bent on rape, theft and pillage seeking out what was left of the village virgins that were left after the local lads had got tanked up on mthe Local Lindisfarne Mead on Holy Island  supervised by the local dignitary, The Venerable Bed e who is allege d to. have brought Christianity to the populace and actually founded a monastery not far up river from the mouth of the Tyne.
> 
> At the other end( well the tidal end) lived none other than George Stephenson later to be copied and copied as designer and builder of the Rocket.  Not at the time that the. Viking came but they had blue eyes wheras the locals were little, darkish skinnedand black hair.  Funny my Mum was little, etc etc but bDad and I are'were tall and-- blue eyedNothing that anyon can do about it but there.
> When dear Old The Vereal Bede popped his cloggs and headed off to imortality- or immorality the local goodies carted his body  past where the local Laidly or Lambton Worm  or serpent lived until it was finally cut up into 3 halves by the local big shot who had come back from the Crusades.  Returning back to the script, Bede was intered in the Durham Cathedral which was built by--- the Normans(we get around).
> 
> So after all these hundreds of years it is claimed that Bede's Body has never rotted. No one has checked but why spol the script.So somewhere( waving of flags, honking of car horns and the clattering of horses hooves and enter 'the wife's lot' Who had Alice in Wonderland  and the the Queen's Mother.
> So they built a castle which true to a good story- fell down. So  I got nothing apart from a wonderful bride!
> Whilst all that was going on- Robert Stephenson- George's Bonny Lad was building railway sand bridges for people to walk or ride across and above railways would run.  One is still there, the Germans had a pot shot at it- but it is still there. What is next is a rather charming Swing Bridge which allows BIG ships to pass. They pulled up the remains of the Roman wooden piles where their bbridge stood.  Made nice picture frames- but I digress.  But a son ofa ca John Dobson used walk from home across it to a huge warehouse which cotray to  belief held Tyneside's largest export. No oy coal but-----Human urine.
> This day- it went off Bang and the bang was so lous it could be heard in British West T+Hartlepool whose only( ?) claim to fame is hanging a French monkey as a spy although he was only a cabin boy. Any how John Dobson's son could only be identified  - by his house. keys.
> My late wife? no- another day. Then came urbinia making rings around Queen's Vostoria;s Great British Fleet  and my story of Nelly's Moss Lakes and electricity generating and then the first light bulbs and my connection with being violently sick  over his granddaughter in law on one of those return of the Latter Day Vikings back to Norway.
> 
> Hstory is fun but never the way that they taught me
> 
> Norman


Hi,

The Venerable Bede was a monk scholar born somewhere between Jarrow and Sunderland - it is rumoured that he was born in Monkton south of Jarrow but as the first reference to that village is in the 11th Century when land was given as a gift to the monks who were restoring the monastery at Jarrow I'm not so sure.  He was sent at around the age of seven to the already established monastery at Wearmouth, Sunderland in his early life to be educated by Benedict Biscop a monk who had established the monastery.  Bede became a monk and wrote and taught younger novice oblates in the monastery.  He later transferred to the new monastery at Jarrow founded by Ceolfrith.  During his 61 or so years he mostly translated works and wrote commentaries on existing religious texts as well as explaining difficult Christian texts (exegeses).  His best known work is 'The Ecclesiastical History of the English People'.  This latter text is the reason he is considered as the father of British historical writing by some.

Christianity was well established in the British Isles by the time of Bede, he certainly didn't introduce it or spread it or found a monastery.  There is evidence of Christian churches in England in the first Century AD and despite some intolerance and persecution in Romano Britain the Christian practices survived until Constantine the Great (Roman Emperor 306 - 337) introduced Christianity as the official religion across  the whole of the Roman Empire and many churches were built at that time in Britain.

The Anglo Saxons re-introduced paganism after their invasion of England and destroyed many churches here evidence ot their religion is especially noticeable in the old kingdom of Mercia (the Midlands) in town names such as Wednesbury (Wodens Borough or town) and the famous tool making company Woden - Woden is the Anglo Saxon spelling of Odin their chief god, the head honcho.  Celtic Christianity continued in Scotland , Ireland, western Wales and Northumbria, as it did in most native communities in Britain, especially the North.  It was the Northumbrian Monk (St) Cuthbert who became Bishop of Lindifarne Abbey and was famed for spreading Christianity back into Northumbria , He died in  687 when Bede was about 12 years old having retired from the church about the same time that Bede was born (he became more or less a hermit).  Cuthbert was trained in the Celtic traditions of the religion but supported the change to the Roman tradition of the Church.

I'm not religious by the way just fascinated by British history of which Christianity played such a huge part in the last millenium.

TerryD


----------



## Steamchick

goldstar31 said:


> Ouch! Unfortunately it is the wrong question- I have no idea of who garrisoned the roman Wall then although I have heard that it was the 'Arbs' and also the French. Again,  there is mention of the 9th Legion. I simply too old, now without transport, down to a disability scooter and almost blind with macular degeneration.
> What I can tell you is that the Roman fort of Caeer Ursa Caer Ursa is NOT on the Roman Wall.  It is separated as the later folk son 'Water of Tyne'  as 'I cannot get to my truelove if I would die as the eaters of Tyne run between THee and me'
> South shields site if the fort are only yard between North Shields but a journey of some 80 kilometres between the two- with the Roman Wall on the North side- to the nearest bridging point of Newcastle upon Tyne- now and then. The nearest brisge to the sea was  the replica of the Sydney Harbour bridge, the Swing Brisge( built over the Roman bog oak wooden piles and the High level Bridge which was designed and built by the son of the early railway pioneer of Rocket fame- George Stephenson. He, incidentally was born in a cottage  at the extreme end of the tidal part of the Tyne. You CAN  navigate around the bridge on thee Spring tides w hich ironically happen once a Lunar Month. I've done it!
> So knowing the size of a Roman galley having done a first on what was probably St Paul's or Saul of Tarsis- isn't that big.
> Complicated isn't it?
> 
> But then the Roman or Hadrian's Walis- of 72 miles n't the furthest North into what is now Northumberland and still in England but there is a Turf wall in Scotland much further North.


Thanks Norman, Interesting. I'm surprised you have an 80km trip to get around the Tyne... Are you going to Corbridge where the Roman road can ford the river? The fort at South Shields was mostly a granary, using the original Tyne Dock to ship the grain up river and to the garrisons on Hadrian's wall. Well worth a visit now! A good starting point for anyone visiting Hadrian's wall - which has many worthy sites.
Robert Stevenson not only built the high level railway and road bridge over the Tyne, he built the box bridge over the Menai Straits (destroyed by fire) - and similarly across the St. Lawrence river to take the railway into the centre of Montreal (on an island). My ancestors lived near George Stevenson (Wylam) when he grew up, worked for him in North Shields, and were Engine men in many pits, and later became Engine drivers on locomotives on the Stockton and Darlington railway. Later they went with Robert down to London when he built that railway from Newcastle, and onwards from London to Liverpool and Holyhead... So my family was "scattered by the railway expansions of the Stevensons". My sister recently met a Canadian member..... We can't get the oil and swarf out of our genes... But my family aside, Robert Stevenson's High Level Bridge is a fantastic and durable piece of engineering from the earliest railways and still carrying traffic today...
K2


----------



## Steamchick

terryd said:


> Hi,
> 
> Urine was used for many things apart from acting as a Mordant to fix and brighten colours, another use was as a source for saltpetre (potassium nitrate) an essential ingredient of gunpowder aka black powder.  However niether usine or saltpetre is definitely not explosive by itself it needs the addition of sulphur and powdered charcoal in critical measure to become 'explosive'.  Actually gunpowder does not explode it just burns rapidly hence the burning lines of gunpowder seen in many 'Westerns',  in order to cause an explosion it needs to be in a strong container.  for the latter purpose it was moistly animal urine that was used but bat guano also contains quite a lot as well and this was mined from their caves.
> 
> Urine was also used as a cleaning agent as it contains ammonia and this will remove grease and dirt, apparently the ancient Greeks encouraged it's use as a tooth whitener.


Years ago I read that Blacksmiths would feed a donkey on turnips (Swedes, Wurzels or Neeps) and collect the urine - to use for quenching blades (for ploughs, chisels, knives or swords) when case hardening and tempering. The suggestion is that the water mostly boiled-off but the nitrates in Urine gave a slight Nitriding to the (forged) steel. Hence a better, keener, more durable edge.
I think Urine - if kept for months - turns into "Lye" as it decays, which was the common "Flash" liquid for cleaning until the 20th c. - Used for all de-greasing and washing clothes. Using fresh pee made your clothes stink of pee - if you could smell it over the pong of "unwashed human" and "bad breath"! But it killed the fleas,  lice, etc., if not their eggs. Hot water (over 60C) did the "medical" cleaning of clothes, but was expensive for fuel..
Because of the trade in dying thread for colouring clothes, when Alum was developed as a mordant, the urine from London was bought and shipped in barrels to North Yorkshire (Robin Hoods bay) to be used in processing the alum. Was this Yorkshire "taking the P!ss out of London"? - A good trade for colliers returning for coal from the Durham coalfields.

K2


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> Hi Ken
> 
> ...Going back, there was/is gold roughly on the 3 degree line  and copper in Llandudno and tin in Cornwall and Ihave no doubt that it all was exported in Europe anyway. It was an important export and done by boys in Roman Times until  the seams went under the Irish Sea.  The Cornish tin was, as we know. also subject to flooding....
> 
> .


Hi Norman,

Gold was not only in Wales, there was quite a lot of gold in Britain - and still is, grains as large as 1 ounce were regularly found in Scottish rivers and gold  prospecting was also common in English rivers, especially in Cumbria.  The largest nugget found in Scotland was in fact in 2019 when one was found weighing over 120 grams by an amateur prospector.  Of course you know that the Queen's wedding ring is made from Welsh gold.

There were also a lot of copper mines all over Britain- especially Wales and Cornish tin was used extensively to make bronze for weapons, tools and jewellery in Bronze Age Britain, it wasn't all exported by Bronze Age Capitalists.

TerryD


----------



## Steamchick

More P folklaw?
Using the pee barrel for washing may sound daft, but... At sea, sailors only had enough fresh water for drinking... topped-up by rain. So to wash (which they didn't do) their clothes (which they did - to reduce lice, fleas etc.) they used the pee barrel. Yes, it contained lye, the decomposed ammonia solution from urine, and din't ruin the skin as washing in salty sea-water would do. But ships had a peculiar smell as a result. Hence the land-lubbers term for sailors as "fish-heads". But the Army - at war - would be far worse off. They usually could find fresh water - which didn't wash clothes very well, nor kill the lice, etc,  - so had plenty to drink - when they couldn't find a village with an inn to drink dry! So not being able to carry barrels of pee (lye) they didn't wash clothes, nor bodies, so "you could smell the army before it arrived and well after it had gone"... Hence the Naval term for the Army as "pongos" - as in "Where the Army goes, the pong-goes".
I was only taught that you could smell the RAF by the expensive cologne they would wear... (According to my Mother and her cronies!). But that was in a more modern time.
And on Nitriding?
Someone told me that instead of using sugar, Kasenite, or other source of Carbon (such as wrapped leather strips cut from old boots - as I had to do as an apprentice) to harden tools, if you use "high Nitrogen fertiliser powder", or "Ajax" powder, you will Nitride the steel and it will "take a better edge".... ?? - Better than quenching in Pee! Anyone any knowledge on that one? May be a way of hardening steel Piston Rings? (Steel can make a slimmer piston ring than cast iron, but needs to be barrel-linished in a dummy cylinder as it won't run-in as quickly in an engine as the cast iron ring). - Any ideas?
K2


----------



## terryd

Steamchick said:


> Years ago I read that Blacksmiths would feed a donkey on turnips (Swedes, Wurzels or Neeps) and collect the urine - to use for quenching blades (for ploughs, chisels, knives or swords) when case hardening and tempering. The suggestion is that the water mostly boiled-off but the nitrates in Urine gave a slight Nitriding to the (forged) steel. Hence a better, keener, more durable edge.
> I think Urine - if kept for months - turns into "Lye" as it decays, which was the common "Flash" liquid for cleaning until the 20th c. - Used for all de-greasing and washing clothes. Using fresh pee made your clothes stink of pee - if you could smell it over the pong of "unwashed human" and "bad breath"! But it killed the fleas,  lice, etc., if not their eggs. Hot water (over 60C) did the "medical" cleaning of clothes, but was expensive for fuel..
> Because of the trade in dying thread for colouring clothes, when Alum was developed as a mordant, the urine from London was bought and shipped in barrels to North Yorkshire (Robin Hoods bay) to be used in processing the alum. Was this Yorkshire "taking the P!ss out of London"? - A good trade for colliers returning for coal from the Durham coalfields.
> 
> K2



 Hi Steamchick,

I'm not sure if it turns into 'Lye' which is caustic soda (sodium hydrixide a very dangerous chemical) but  the ammonia would be released as the water evaporates and of course ammonia is used as a cleaning fluid as being alkaline it dissolves grease.

Regarding body odours, there are now scientists who believe that body odours are actually caused by washing and that 'the great unwashed' didn't actually smell that bad or in fact very dirty, unless involved in manual work of course.  The reason for the theory, which I first read about in the late 1960s, relies on the fact that there are several types of bacteria living on the skin.  One particulat type feeds on sweat and it is their excretions that smell bad.  However, so the theory goes, when washing those excretions off you also wash of 'good' bacteria which naturally counteract the effects of teh 'bad' bacteria, so washing actually encourages the production of bad smells which then have to be washed off in a never ending cycle.  As for bad breath, that is mostly caused by dental problems which are mostly the result of the excess of refined sugar we eat and that didn't appear until the early Georgian period, and the demands for the new sweetener led to the slave trade to provide the labour for the plantations... and so life goes on!

TerryD


----------



## goldstar31

terryd said:


> Hi Norman,
> 
> Gold was not only in Wales, there was quite a lot of gold in Britain - and still is, grains as large as 1 ounce were regularly found in Scottish rivers and gold  prospecting was also common in English rivers, especially in Cumbria.  The largest nugget found in Scotland was in fact in 2019 when one was found weighing over 120 grams by an amateur prospector.  Of course you know that the Queen's wedding ring is made from Welsh gold.
> 
> There were also a lot of copper mines all over Britain- especially Wales and Cornish tin was used extensively to make bronze for weapons, tools and jewellery in Bronze Age Britain, it wasn't all exported by Bronze Age Capitalists.
> 
> TerryD



Terrry

I was quoting the 3 degree line  because e it runs through Cornwall, into North Wales  into Aryll, through the Highlands and across the Black Isle above Inverness  and so on.
Ron Carpenter was on the British Gold Panning team and wrote an excellent little book. We had next door time shares i n Dalfaber,  Aviemore where I finally bought a bhutt and bein.
However Ron mentioned that gold was found under va hospital in Auld Reekie, Edinburgh. I always thought that the St Claairs( Sinclairs) had 'something else at Roslin Chapel--- shades og the Knights Templar and Kilwinning. Oddly, I 've just taken a call from Kilbarchan, Paisley. My old mate has got grand Lodge! 
Of course I have a connection the vScottish side of things on the Argyll and theIslands side of things. But for Countess Cromarty, we'd be living up there.


----------



## terryd

terryd said:


> Hi Steamchick,
> 
> I'm not sure if it turns into 'Lye' which is caustic soda (sodium hydrixide a very dangerous chemical) but  the ammonia would be released as the water evaporates and of course ammonia is used as a cleaning fluid as being alkaline it dissolves grease.
> 
> Regarding body odours, there are now scientists who believe that body odours are actually caused by washing and that 'the great unwashed' didn't actually smell that bad or in fact very dirty, unless involved in manual work of course.  The reason for the theory, which I first read about in the late 1960s, relies on the fact that there are several types of bacteria living on the skin.  One particulat type feeds on sweat and it is their excretions that smell bad.  However, so the theory goes, when washing those excretions off you also wash of 'good' bacteria which naturally counteract the effects of teh 'bad' bacteria, so washing actually encourages the production of bad smells which then have to be washed off in a never ending cycle.  As for bad breath, that is mostly caused by dental problems which are mostly the result of the excess of refined sugar we eat and that didn't appear until the early Georgian period, and the demands for the new sweetener led to the slave trade to provide the labour for the plantations... and so life goes on!
> 
> TerryD


  I forgot to mention that as far as not washing goes you shed your outer skin layer (stratum cornea) completely in about 30 days and it is continually being replaced with new skin cells and as this is a continuous action the dirt which is on that outer skin layer  is also removed, without washing.  People in early cities carried around scented pomanders if you were rich or posies from flower girls if you were poorer in order to hide the smells of human excretions which were often just thrown into the streets relying on rain to wash it into the nearest stream or river.

Once again Steamchick, Lye is caustic soda, i.e. sodium or pottasium hydroxide, not ammonia.

TerryD


----------



## goldstar31

Steamchick said:


> More P folklaw?
> Using the pee barrel for washing may sound daft, but... At sea, sailors only had enough fresh water for drinking... topped-up by rain. So to wash (which they didn't do) their clothes (which they did - to reduce lice, fleas etc.) they used the pee barrel. Yes, it contained lye, the decomposed ammonia solution from urine, and din't ruin the skin as washing in salty sea-water would do. But ships had a peculiar smell as a result. Hence the land-lubbers term for sailors as "fish-heads". But the Army - at war - would be far worse off. They usually could find fresh water - which didn't wash clothes very well, nor kill the lice, etc,  - so had plenty to drink - when they couldn't find a village with an inn to drink dry! So not being able to carry barrels of pee (lye) they didn't wash clothes, nor bodies, so "you could smell the army before it arrived and well after it had gone"... Hence the Naval term for the Army as "pongos" - as in "Where the Army goes, the pong-goes".
> I was only taught that you could smell the RAF by the expensive cologne they would wear... (According to my Mother and her cronies!). But that was in a more modern time.
> And on Nitriding?
> Someone told me that instead of using sugar, Kasenite, or other source of Carbon (such as wrapped leather strips cut from old boots - as I had to do as an apprentice) to harden tools, if you use "high Nitrogen fertiliser powder", or "Ajax" powder, you will Nitride the steel and it will "take a better edge".... ?? - Better than quenching in Pee! Anyone any knowledge on that one? May be a way of hardening steel Piston Rings? (Steel can make a slimmer piston ring than cast iron, but needs to be barrel-linished in a dummy cylinder as it won't run-in as quickly in an engine as the cast iron ring). - Any ideas?
> K2



My father was a blacksmith of the old school. Did his apprenticeship at Consett which is next doot to Shotley Bridge  the formwe scene of the  German Sword Makers who, it is said  made gentlemen's swords that could be wound into a top hat.  The swords were beaten out with charcoal and folded and folded like a Swiss Roll.  Dad probably 'started' at the age of 12, his father being formerly at Shildon and Timothy Hackwort's railway works -- Sans Pareill and all that. Dad's two brothers were also smoths. Dad used pared horses hooves and tempered with the contents of the pee bucket.
Dad was a farrier too, set fire to a couple of reluctant horses  on Anglesy as a under age sapper and was teaching pnteland bridge building across the Menair Straits to the mainland. Enter briefly,  the Megalithic Yard a by Professor Thom and the megalithic Yard-- using the Plannet Venus and all described by the two Masons in Bradford Uni.

Back to the man with eye like him, steel and he could re-weld a broken  leaf spring as new, could tempper spring steel with charring wood and could soften copper soldering irons so that they could be tinned again and taught me how to the gauge the hetat of an iron by- holding int near my cheek.
My first soldering ironwas 6 old pence at the now long gone Woolworth's. I must have been only 9 as it was pre-war.

I recall him when I was a bare 16 year old being given leave by-another freemason to cisit him in hospital, He's been inside a loco boiler re-tubing by himself and came to grief.   Then another day their was the running wire rope under ground and he was cutand cut. I'd come home from the localmflea pit after watching Cronins, the Stars Look Down. Of course I never became an engineer or whatever. Ofcourse I do have a City and Guilds and was a Certified Welder.
My knowledge of Church History is another story but I reckon that there was a tenuous connection  with 'Hendon' but not quite because mycousin was a Army Officer/RAF Officer( Named in both lists!) and was with Tito with what was Yugoslavia and the with Churchill at the Yalta Conference.
Hendon was 'More than an ancient aerodrome and Ally Pally ( Alexandra Palace) was more than ]bending the beams of the Luftwaffe. 

And there was no way I wanted a Commission based on my cousin and my IQ.


----------



## goldstar31

Thinking of things Ecclesiastical - Prince Bishops of Durham, my father was at a coal mine and the diggings broke through into an old workplace with candles and sandals and was later claimed to hav e been The Monks of Kepier- part of Durham and some 16 miles or so from the monk's hospital.
OK it was a drift mine but it begs the question of 'why'? 
OK the R iv er Tyne at that point was only two or so miles away.  The Tyne was navigable  as far as the kissing Stone and on a Spring tide a bit further. Anyone hazard a guess, please?
I know about the other. Dyke that complements the Roman Dyke and the Great Whin sill Dyle that takes part of the Hadrian's Roman Wall and which stretches to appear at Coqurt Island and thence to the Farbe Island a chain off 7 miles out to sea( Grace Farling etc) and then  seems to end at the Holy Island of St Cuthbert of Lindisafar.  And back to Nort Sunderland  and North Sunderland- not Sunderland.
Dunstanburgh of St Dunstan and the Lordly Strand which is Northumberland- and Bamburgh Castle!
Splendid views of Muckle Cheviot.

I cannot believe faxing the 7 knot tide race between the islands in a folding canoe nor can I imagine that I used to ski the wet heather down Cheviot to Sir Walter Scott wrote 'Marmion'.


----------



## goldstar31

So my two children and their four can trace their lineage to 1610. Not me- my late wife's lot.
Any more with an earlier date? Guessing, that was the time of the Death of Queen Elizabeth- dfrom lead poisoning and James the 1st of England and the 6th Of Scotland writing 'A Counterblast against Smoking'

Reminds me of that music hall performer who was called Nosmo King!

Lye incidentally is usually wood ash and then we come on to the saponification of fatty acids---Soap


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> Terrry
> 
> I was quoting the 3 degree line  because e it runs through Cornwall, into North Wales  into Aryll, through the Highlands and across the Black Isle above Inverness  and so on.
> Ron Carpenter was on the British Gold Panning team and wrote an excellent little book. We had next door time shares i n Dalfaber,  Aviemore where I finally bought a bhutt and bein.
> However Ron mentioned that gold was found under va hospital in Auld Reekie, Edinburgh. I always thought that the St Claairs( Sinclairs) had 'something else at Roslin Chapel--- shades og the Knights Templar and Kilwinning. Oddly, I 've just taken a call from Kilbarchan, Paisley. My old mate has got grand Lodge!
> Of course I have a connection the vScottish side of things on the Argyll and theIslands side of things. But for Countess Cromarty, we'd be living up there.



Hi Norman,

I understand your comment on the 3° line but there are also significant gold deposits between 2° and 4° at least, covering a huge area but it's good to realise that the 3° line is so important as my property in N Brittany is on that line almost exactly and as the geology is so similar to Devon and Cornwall perhaps I should start panning the local streams and rivers!  Maybe I should look to an engineering solution to automate the process

Regards and stay safe

TerryD


----------



## goldstar31

Hi Terry

I've actually seen  the result of a day's panning 'somewhere North of The Black Isle' and really, my wife was far from impressed. Here yield of gold from extracted patients teeth was far in excess of Ron Carpenter's day standing in ice cold water.  Mind you, my dear wife made up a paraffin wax casting for a little neck ingot, had it melted and centrifugally cast( all the clever stuff)-- and it wouldn't assay!

It contained fairly large amounts of platinum. Christine had always planned to have her own teeth knocked out after her death.  Her senior dental officer ws deputed for the task but things were so sudden- and it never happened.  As Rabbi Burns was oft to quote 'The best laid schemes of mice and men gan aft a- glay.  Which makes me think that he lived in Gold Country

Take care
Cheers

N


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> So my two children and their four can trace their lineage to 1610. Not me- my late wife's lot.
> Any more with an earlier date? Guessing, that was the time of the Death of Queen Elizabeth- dfrom lead poisoning and James the 1st of England and the 6th Of Scotland writing 'A Counterblast against Smoking'
> 
> Reminds me of that music hall performer who was called Nosmo King!
> 
> Lye incidentally is usually wood ash and then we come on to the saponification of fatty acids---Soap



Hi Norman,

re Lye - It's not actually wood ash per se, but sodium hydroxide (lye - aka caustic soda) _*can*_ be leached from wood ash but that's rare these days and it is now made by other processes industrially. Caustic soda only reacts with lipids when dissolved in water when it becomes aggresive and dangerous so it's pellets can be handled quite safely in dry conditions. My wife used to work for a large chemicals company who dealt with huge quantities of the stuff and I usd to get free 'samples' which I used, with safety precautiions for removing hardened grease and paint from tools and equipmentwhen refurbishing them, now I have to buy it .  however It's much cheaper though than proprietary paint removers and at least cleans the greases from the drains.

As you suggest it is used in soap making but so is potassium hydroxide which makes a much softer soap including the (very)  soft soap which, given your age (and mine) you will know of amongst other things as a lubricant for thread cutting in larger sizes, as was tallow.  We also used soft soap with the addition of an abrasive such as sand or salt grains as a substitute for Swarfega.  When I was experimenting with used cooking oil, turning it into bio fuel for my generator I also used caustic soda to make 'craft' soaps from any excess vegetable oil.

Caustic soda (lye) is also much used by organised crime such as the Mafia for disposing of bodies turning them, into soap 

Regards and stay safe,

TerryD


----------



## goldstar31

Hi Tery
             Thanks for the 'lyes, lyes, and damned statistics. We used to use 'Cows Dick' to remove paint and varnishes .  And yes, you can get rid of mother's in law!
And then clean the drains afterwards. The mind boggles!
Again, all this soft soap about  used cooking oil. Clears throat, I have Chinese connections. In fact, I have been in a sort of lockdown since the Chinese New Year. I am always invited to the Chinese Old Age Pensioner's New Year Lunch. Clears throat, more Anon- or perhaps not!
Best Wishes

Norman


----------



## Steamchick

Sorry I got it wrong with "Lye" .. didn't manage much with chemistry. But I regularly use Caustic soda to de-grease the drains... - It turns into common salt I think? - And the Hydrocarbons in the grease decay into Carbon dioxide and water - possibly? Don't ask me how.
I did hear once that Undertakers were so rich because they removed all the gold from teeth of cadavers. (For cremations someone has to remove all metal items! Fillings, rings, jewellery - I wonder if they removed all the bone implant splints from Barry Sheen and  Evel Knievel? And the Undertakers don't want the furnace lads getting rich instead!).
K2


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> So my two children and their four can trace their lineage to 1610. Not me- my late wife's lot.
> Any more with an earlier date? Guessing, that was the time of the Death of Queen Elizabeth- dfrom lead poisoning and James the 1st of England and the 6th Of Scotland writing 'A Counterblast against Smoking'
> 
> Reminds me of that music hall performer who was called Nosmo King!
> 
> Lye incidentally is usually wood ash and then we come on to the saponification of fatty acids---Soap


 Hi Norman,

Your mention of James 1 of England reminded me that it was he who offered a sustantial prize for anyone who could successfully smaelt iron without using charcoal as there was an environmental problem in that too many trees were being used to make the charcoal for the ironmakers at the time.  The only person who was successful was the chap I mentioned in an earlier posting, Dud Dudley (1600 - 1684).  Dud was an illegitimate son of the Earl of Dudley who was brought back from Balliol college, Oxford to run the ironworks and mines for his father on Pensnett Chase near Dudley itself.  In fact according to contemporary commentators nearly all of the trees from the woods on the chase had been cut down for charcoal.  Dud eventually succeded but it took him quite a while to get his rewards and in the meantime he suffered troubles from the Great Mayday Flood of 1625 which destroyed his first blast furnace In Cradley near to where Rastrick built the 'Stourbridge Lion' - the first steam locomotive in the USA and traditional ironmakers and charcoal producers who disparaged his product and destroyed one furnace and then destroyed the bellows at his next one - early Luddite before Ned Ludd?

The ironworks of the Earl actually lasted well into the 20th Century eventually becoming part of British Steel as the Round Oak Steelworks in Brierly Hill which was closed down in the 1980s government attacks on heavy industry in the UK, was around 3 miles from my family home and was 2still known locally as 'the Earl of Dudley's'

Abraham Darby (b. 1678 aka the father of the industrial revolution), who was born and lived about 1/2 mile from my family's village in the Parish of Sedgley near Dudley, was descended from Dud's sister, another illegitimate child of the Earl.  He of course moved to Bristol as a brass founder and then to Coalbrookedale Shropshire where he build his blast furnace at  Blists Hill and where the famous Iron Bridge was built.  Darby is thought of as the first to smelt iron using coke but he would have known of his granduncle Dud's achievements who had built a coke fired blast furnace in Dudley.

The history of the Sutton Family (Earls of Dudley) is also fascinating and as an aside Dud's father Edward Sutton was the last Baron, Earl of Dudley, as his bad management, poor decisions and rather degenerate lifestyle (his mistress bore him at least 11 children in addition to the 4 with his wife) lost the family fortunes  

The Black Country of which Dudley is the centre had a seam of coal running beneath which was up to 30 feet thick and close to the surface - the soil is black due to the coal dust and marl clay which possibly gave the name to the area, there were also rich seams of ironstone and the geology of the area around Dudley and Sedgley is limestone, the place where Darby was born is known as 'the Wren's Nest which was a limestone quarry (now an SSI and is famed for it's geology and rich source of fossils) having the 'Seven Sisters' caverns and a huge chamber hollowed out known as 'The Cathedral'.  The limestone was carried to an underground canal basin linked to the workings on the canal which ran underneath Dudley Castle hill.  The canal is now part of the 'Black Country Living Museum' where much of the 'Peaky Blinders' TV series is filmed.  All of these minerals  and facilities together meant that the area was perfect for smelting iron using coke.







The scale of the cavern can be appreciated by reference to the miner to the left of centre in the picture  The Seven Sisters were the huge pillars left to support the roof and the huge cavern is known locally as the Cathedral.





__





						Geology of Wren's Nest National Nature Reserve
					

Information regarding the Geology of Wren's Nest National Nature Reserve and more about fossils.




					www.dudley.gov.uk
				




Ain't history fascinating?

Regards Stay safe,

TerryD


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> Hi Terry
> 
> I've actually seen  the result of a day's panning 'somewhere North of The Black Isle' and really, my wife was far from impressed. Here yield of gold from extracted patients teeth was far in excess of Ron Carpenter's day standing in ice cold water.  Mind you, my dear wife made up a paraffin wax casting for a little neck ingot, had it melted and centrifugally cast( all the clever stuff)-- and it wouldn't assay!
> 
> It contained fairly large amounts of platinum. Christine had always planned to have her own teeth knocked out after her death.  Her senior dental officer ws deputed for the task but things were so sudden- and it never happened.  As Rabbi Burns was oft to quote 'The best laid schemes of mice and men gan aft a- glay.  Which makes me think that he lived in Gold Country
> 
> Take care
> Cheers
> 
> N


Hi Norman,

But we can all try panning for gold but not act as dentists.  I did a lot of of centrifugal casting when I did my 2 year jewellery and silversmithing course at Loughborough Universithy College in the early 1970s we made outr patterns from casting wax which is harder than parafin wax with a higher melting point so that it can be handled more easily and much finer detail produced, beeswax was traditionally used and of course is still available .  Great fun it was too.

You can always seperate gold from platinum easily given the large difference in melting points - gold about 1000°C and platinum about 1800°C if I remember well and the largest nugget found in the UK at 3.9 oz (121.3 gm) would fill a lot of teeth.

Regards and stay safe,

TerryD


----------



## goldstar31

Hi terry

Thank you for a fascinating account- or TWO!

The next daft question is more tenuous. How to  separate used dental amalgam.  I have a substantial amount.  Of course the odd thing is mercury.  The lady in question was a close relative of 'Alice in Wonderland' and therefore the Mad Hatter!
Of course Alice ( Alice Pleasance Liddell)'s father was Den of Oxford and  wrote with a colleague the Lexicon. It;s Greek to me but there you are.  Actually, I have photos of the family pile which suffered( ouch) from having been undermined.
Apologies but my senses of  humour and trivia is somewhat clouded with the breaking news on the vaccine. My days of being a Francophile are over but I was hoping that I'd be 'jabbed' quickly enough to book a cruise. 
Meantime my best wishes
Stay safe

N


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> Hi terry
> 
> Thank you for a fascinating account- or TWO!
> 
> The next daft question is more tenuous. How to  separate used dental amalgam.  I have a substantial amount.  Of course the odd thing is mercury.  The lady in question was a close relative of 'Alice in Wonderland' and therefore the Mad Hatter!
> Of course Alice ( Alice Pleasance Liddell)'s father was Den of Oxford and  wrote with a colleague the Lexicon. It;s Greek to me but there you are.  Actually, I have photos of the family pile which suffered( ouch) from having been undermined.
> Apologies but my senses of  humour and trivia is somewhat clouded with the breaking news on the vaccine. My days of being a Francophile are over but I was hoping that I'd be 'jabbed' quickly enough to book a cruise.
> Meantime my best wishes
> Stay safe
> 
> N


Hi Norman,

When I lived in Luton, a major centre of hatmaking in the past, it was claimed that the term "Mad as a Hatter" came about due to the strange behaviour of workers as a result of the accumulation of mercury in the body as a result of the hat making process (allegedly 70 million hats were produced in Luton in the 1930s. 

However it is also claimed that the term was derived from Ango Saxon as a result of the behaviour of a person who was bitten by an adder - Who knows the truth

Live long and prosper

TerryD


----------



## goldstar31

[QUOTE="terryd, post: 350345, member: 3769

However it is also claimed that the term was derived from Ango Saxon as a result of the behaviour of a person who was bitten by an adder - Who knows the truth


[/QUOTE]

Where these the adders which couldn't multiply until they got log tables?
Sorry- old joke from man old bloke. I felt the kneed.
Keep well

Norman


----------



## terryd

goldstar31 said:


> Where these the adders which couldn't multiply until they got log tables?
> Sorry- old joke from man old bloke. I felt the kneed.
> Keep well
> 
> Norman



I heard that they got a slide rule and then it was 'Go 4th and Multiply' - and they did!

From another old bloke


----------



## goldstar31

On flights of fancy(?) with our Sliderule  we cab Shute off to a Town named Alice(!) and return to model engineering. Neville Shute Norway was a friend of 'Ned' Westbury and built models in Australia up to his death. And that- Graham - took place in a Masonic Retirement Home.

And back to that troubled family and seemingly an even more troubled author, enters an eccentric furniture dealer  associated with illustrator called Tenniel and Rev;d Dodgson Theophilus Carter who at the Great Exhibition of 1851 exhibited an --- An Alarm Clock Bed.
I had to laugh

Norman


----------



## GrahamJTaylor49

goldstar31 said:


> On flights of fancy(?) with our Sliderule  we cab Shute off to a Town named Alice(!) and return to model engineering. Neville Shute Norway was a friend of 'Ned' Westbury and built models in Australia up to his death. And that- Graham - took place in a Masonic Retirement Home.
> 
> And back to that troubled family and seemingly an even more troubled author, enters an eccentric furniture dealer  associated with illustrator called Tenniel and Rev;d Dodgson Theophilus Carter who at the Great Exhibition of 1851 exhibited an --- An Alarm Clock Bed.
> I had to laugh
> 
> Norman


Hi Norman,  Many years ago, and I mean many years, my mother, bless her soul, sat me down and gave me a stack of books. I suddenly found that I loved reading and over the years have read many hundreds of books. From Dennis Wheatley to John Wyndham. When I was at the tender age of about 10 I picked up Nevil Shute Norway's book entitled "Trustee from the Toolroom". I read it from cover to cover and when finished I informed my mother that one day I would be a toolmaker. I have a first edition of that book signed by the author and it is one of my most cherished possessions. When I left school at the tender age of 16 I started my apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong as an apprentice toolmaker and 5 years later received my papers as an aircraft toolmaker. That book changed my life and I have always regretted not having met that gentleman and thanked him. Reading that book was a nexus point in my life and I have a lot to be grateful for. Someone once said " if you find something to do that you are absolutely passionate about you will never work a day in your life". I have found that to be very true. I love Engineering with a passion that my wife doesn't understand and many's the time that she has said to me "either sit down or go out to your man cave and get on with the model that your working on". I have a great life playing with big industrial air compressors, motorcycles, model steam engines and firearms. Am now 71 and have no intention of retiring. Love this web site and all the comments and hints from all over the world. Keep up the good work and all please stay safe.


----------



## Dubi

GrahamJTaylor49 said:


> Hi Norman,  Many years ago, and I mean many years, my mother, bless her soul, sat me down and gave me a stack of books. I suddenly found that I loved reading and over the years have read many hundreds of books. From Dennis Wheatley to John Wyndham. When I was at the tender age of about 10 I picked up Nevil Shute Norway's book entitled "Trustee from the Toolroom". I read it from cover to cover and when finished I informed my mother that one day I would be a toolmaker. I have a first edition of that book signed by the author and it is one of my most cherished possessions. When I left school at the tender age of 16 I started my apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong as an apprentice toolmaker and 5 years later received my papers as an aircraft toolmaker. That book changed my life and I have always regretted not having met that gentleman and thanked him. Reading that book was a nexus point in my life and I have a lot to be grateful for. Someone once said " if you find something to do that you are absolutely passionate about you will never work a day in your life". I have found that to be very true. I love Engineering with a passion that my wife doesn't understand and many's the time that she has said to me "either sit down or go out to your man cave and get on with the model that your working on". I have a great life playing with big industrial air compressors, motorcycles, model steam engines and firearms. Am now 71 and have no intention of retiring. Love this web site and all the comments and hints from all over the world. Keep up the good work and all please stay safe.


Good morning Graham,
I was quite intrigued by your post because my Mother also led me into the world of books. The first book I can recall was the Indian Rubber Men by Edgar Wallace and of course the usual books, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lorna Doone, the Three Musketeers and many, many others but the book to have the greatest influence was The Frogmen by Waldron and Gleeson.  Which was compounded by the TV program Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges that introduced me to the underwater world and many of my age. A world that has been my life and still is because going from my younger years as a Underwater Photographer to a designer of Wet Submersibles and still diving and still Turning! 

Coming back to the subject of books, Neville Shute is also one of my prime authors. I read a Town Like Alice in the early 1950's while living in Singapore with my parents.  In those day's the injustice of the Japanese
Occupation in Singapore was very much alive.  My Armah told me how her parents and neighbours had been treated by the Japanese during the occupation. I know that one family member was incarcerated in the Changi Jail, another is buried in the Kranje War Commission grounds and from time to time I visit him when in Sing.

I must confess that I was not aware of the "Trustee from the Toolroom" but it is now on my list.

Have a peaceful Sunday and stay safe. Dubi


----------



## goldstar31

Dubi said:


> Good morning Graham,
> I was quite intrigued by your post because my Mother also led me into the world of books. The first book I can recall was the Indian Rubber Men by Edgar Wallace and of course the usual books, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lorna Doone, the Three Musketeers and many, many others but the book to have the greatest influence was The Frogmen by Waldron and Gleeson.  Which was compounded by the TV program Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges that introduced me to the underwater world and many of my age. A world that has been my life and still is because going from my younger years as a Underwater Photographer to a designer of Wet Submersibles and still diving and still Turning!
> 
> Coming back to the subject of books, Neville Shute is also one of my prime authors. I read a Town Like Alice in the early 1950's while living in Singapore with my parents.  In those day's the injustice of the Japanese
> Occupation in Singapore was very much alive.  My Armah told me how her parents and neighbours had been treated by the Japanese during the occupation. I know that one family member was incarcerated in the Changi Jail, another is buried in the Kranje War Commission grounds and from time to time I visit him when in Sing.
> 
> I must confess that I was not aware of the "Trustee from the Toolroom" but it is now on my list.
> 
> Have a peaceful Sunday and stay safe. Dubi



I'm a member of Royal Air Force 31 Squadron( the Goldstars) Squadron who( Before my time) literally rescued prisoners in the Far vEast after dropping supplies in the Burma Campaign.
Much of it is recorded in  Norman Frank's book "First in the Indian Skies"

It's bit off course for my later time but my father in law was with the Squadron at Imphal.

Again on Trustee from the Tool Room is supposed to be modelled on Edgar T Westbury. He is well worth a Google.

As for the Squadron Memorial, it is in the National Arboretum with a seat for us old wearies to sit and reflect. As sole executor and sole beneficiary of  I bought the seat in what would have been my late wife;s earnest  desire to recall her father and all those who served the Squadron back to before the formation of the Royal Air Force  when 'an airman had to sleep with his horse'
I make no further comment on that bit!

Best Wishes

ex Corporal Atkinson N
i/c Technical Library
Royal Air Force

Hendon

The Hyde

London NW9


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## terryd

GrahamJTaylor49 said:


> Hi Norman,  Many years ago, and I mean many years, my mother, bless her soul, sat me down and gave me a stack of books. I suddenly found that I loved reading and over the years have read many hundreds of books. From Dennis Wheatley to John Wyndham. When I was at the tender age of about 10 I picked up Nevil Shute Norway's book entitled "Trustee from the Toolroom". I read it from cover to cover and when finished I informed my mother that one day I would be a toolmaker. I have a first edition of that book signed by the author and it is one of my most cherished possessions. When I left school at the tender age of 16 I started my apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong as an apprentice toolmaker and 5 years later received my papers as an aircraft toolmaker. That book changed my life and I have always regretted not having met that gentleman and thanked him. Reading that book was a nexus point in my life and I have a lot to be grateful for. Someone once said " if you find something to do that you are absolutely passionate about you will never work a day in your life". I have found that to be very true. I love Engineering with a passion that my wife doesn't understand and many's the time that she has said to me "either sit down or go out to your man cave and get on with the model that your working on". I have a great life playing with big industrial air compressors, motorcycles, model steam engines and firearms. Am now 71 and have no intention of retiring. Love this web site and all the comments and hints from all over the world. Keep up the good work and all please stay safe.



Hi Graham,  

I too have been an avid reader for almost all of my 73 years, I must admit to procrastinating for most of the first four.  I was able to read before the age of 5 and as we hadn't many books my mother took me to the local branch library to get a ticket for loans but the librarian said that they don't give them to children until over 5 and they could read, at which point my mom took a book off the (childrens) shelf which apparently I proceeded to read - I got my ticket.  I don't remember the details of the transaction but I remember vividly standing in the library as it was in a large veranda style glass building in Coseley park, it must have been horrible in extremes of weather in there.  But to get to the point I read most of the classics early including 'A Town like Alice' but didn't get to know 'Trustee From the Toolroom' until about 10 years ago and I loved it.

Mind you most of the time I loved reading non fiction books about just about any subject and it was the choice between Engineering and Entymology but the steam locos that trundled and sped past on the Stour Valley section of the West Coast main line between Tipton and Deepfields in the Black Country that decided for me and I served a full apprenticeship before working in the toolroom for some years.

TerryD


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## Steamchick

An Engineer turned clock and model maker, from my local ME club,  decided to make a steam plant - fuel tank, burner, fire-tube boiler and slide-valve engine, that would fit into a matchbox. Ran for 5 mins on a shot of lighter butane. He made a dozen or so jets and burners to get the best... Smaller than a cig lighter jet!
K2


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## Dubi

goldstar31 said:


> I'm a member of Royal Air Force 31 Squadron( the Goldstars) Squadron who( Before my time) literally rescued prisoners in the Far vEast after dropping supplies in the Burma Campaign.
> Much of it is recorded in  Norman Frank's book "First in the Indian Skies"
> 
> It's bit off course for my later time but my father in law was with the Squadron at Imphal.
> 
> Again on Trustee from the Tool Room is supposed to be modelled on Edgar T Westbury. He is well worth a Google.
> 
> As for the Squadron Memorial, it is in the National Arboretum with a seat for us old wearies to sit and reflect. As sole executor and sole beneficiary of  I bought the seat in what would have been my late wife;s earnest  desire to recall her father and all those who served the Squadron back to before the formation of the Royal Air Force  when 'an airman had to sleep with his horse'
> I make no further comment on that bit!
> 
> Best Wishes
> 
> ex Corporal Atkinson N
> i/c Technical Library
> Royal Air Force
> 
> Hendon
> 
> The Hyde
> 
> London NW9


I wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas and with a lot of luck a better 2021.


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## Dubi

goldstar31 said:


> Hi terry
> 
> Thank you for a fascinating account- or TWO!
> 
> The next daft question is more tenuous. How to  separate used dental amalgam.  I have a substantial amount.  Of course the odd thing is mercury.  The lady in question was a close relative of 'Alice in Wonderland' and therefore the Mad Hatter!
> Of course Alice ( Alice Pleasance Liddell)'s father was Den of Oxford and  wrote with a colleague the Lexicon. It;s Greek to me but there you are.  Actually, I have photos of the family pile which suffered( ouch) from having been undermined.
> Apologies but my senses of  humour and trivia is somewhat clouded with the breaking news on the vaccine. My days of being a Francophile are over but I was hoping that I'd be 'jabbed' quickly enough to book a cruise.
> Meantime my best wishes
> Stay safe
> 
> N


I wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas and hope you find 2021 a much better year.


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## goldstar31

Dubi said:


> I wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas and hope you find 2021 a much better year.


thank you for your Festive Greeting and may I join you and everyone else a safer and threfore happier New Year

Keep Well

Keep Safe

Norman


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## Steamchick

Happy new year all. May 2021 bring you the pleasure you desire without heartache.
K2


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## AlexNillson89

Wow, this chat is just awesome, I have learned so many new things here, I just can't believe it! Thanks to everyone who dropped something here, it's super interesting!


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## goldstar31

AlexNillson89 said:


> Wow, this chat is just awesome, I have learned so many new things here, I just can't believe it! Thanks to everyone who dropped something here, it's super interesting!


Apologies Alex,

I
My old eyesight gives a split image in my right eye and nothing much happens in my left one.

So I got confused with  York an New York in framing a reply. Please accept my apologies but may I continue to send  sincerest greetings and best wishes.

Norman


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