susanb34•1mo agoProlific Poster

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

4 comments

4 Comments

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.

avery2191mo 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.

kimmurphy1mo ago

Doesn't that kind of care apply to most things that last? I mean, I can barely keep my truck's oil changed on time, and that's modern machinery with a manual telling me exactly when to do it. Oliverhernandez is right about the institutional memory being the real trick. Somebody had to pass down the habit of oiling that thing through wars, depressions, and probably a handful of lazy cousins. If I tried to hand down a similar chore to my kids, they'd probably just spray it with WD-40 once and call it good. That chain of attention is way more impressive than the iron itself.

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oliverhernandez1mo ago

The real lost tech is the institutional memory that knew which oil to use and how often to apply it.