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c/blacksmiths•susanb34susanb34•14h agoProlific Poster

Visited the old forge museum in Pittsburgh and saw a hand-cranked blower from 1892 still working!

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3 Comments
joel_jones
joel_jones14h ago
Seems a bit over the top to call that impressive. That's just basic cast iron and simple gears, stuff built to last back then. Not exactly a miracle it still turns.
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avery219
avery21914h ago
Sure, it's basic stuff. But the impressive part isn't the metal itself. It's that someone, for over a hundred years, kept up with the oiling and the cleaning without ever deciding it was too much hassle to just replace it. That kind of constant, quiet care is the real lost tech.
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oliverhernandez
The real lost tech is the institutional memory that knew which oil to use and how often to apply it.
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