Congratulations to Blackboat- he ID'd me correctly. Yeah, I was a skinny kid in that photo. I believe that picture was taken about 1966 or so,. That's 41 years ago. A lot has happened in mylife since then, but some things remained and some things developed from my early interests. The little forge hearth is long gone, but the Peter Wright anvil is still used by me. I've had a few other forges since that little one. I still keep a hand in, forging steel from time to time. I'm 57 years old (how'd that happen ?!), go a solid 180 lbs, and stand 5'-10". I haven't worn a "crew cut" (what is nowadays called a "buzz cut", I think) since about 1970. I haven;t worn those heavy frame "nerd" glasses since about 1970, either. It's been wire-frame glasses with safety lenses for many years. I haven;t worn a shop apron in close to 40 years. If I work at the forge or do heavier shopwork, it's a pair of broken-in denim bib overalls and a peaked engineer cap. On about 1970, working in the old Rheingold Brewery as an undergraduate, I stopped wearing the crew cuts and let my hair grow, also grew a mustache. This wa sin response to the tyrannical chief engineer and some of his carryings-on. Some of my replies to his inquiries about my reasons for growing the moustache led him to try to nail me with a 1" bronze globe valve.
My upper lip has not seen the light of day since 1970, and the moustache grew into an oldtime "handlebar", since that is what the oldtimers seemed to wear. I've never lost touch with the forge or the shop. Nowadays, the forge is a Champion rivetted steel hearth with a "whirlwind" firepot. It's on an undercarriage I welded up, so's I can move the forge around with the tractor. Unfortunately, years of shopwork took their toll, and last winter while doing some forge work with my wife, I got hit with a case of tennis elbow. I had been in the habit of swinging a 6 lb smith sledge one-handed, and it caught up with me. My wife took the sledge and struck for me that day, so we kept on working. I've got a wonderful wife who enjoys forge work, and our son, age 19 seems to like it as well. He knows what machine work is, but in truth has no real interest in it. Get him around the forge and he is a fair smith and enjoys the work. One of these days, I will give him my Peter Wright Anvil and smith tools.
I've had a great run in my career, having found my niche. I've been a mechanical engineer for 36 years, licensed as a Professional Engineer since 1977- about 31 years. I've got another 3 1/2 years to go to hit my 30 years at the powerplant, then am eligible for full retirement benefits. My wife jokes I will likely be more busy in "retirement" than when I was employed full time. Who knows what lies ahead. I suppose there will be some consulting engineering, and I imagine I will use my certification as a welding inspector. Mainly, I am hoping to keep a hand in and do "fun jobs", perhaps riding my motorcycles with my wif eon the back to visit friends around the USA and perhaps do some of those fun jobs in the process.
I will say that an understanding of shopwork and the ability to go do it has always been a great asset to me. Knowing something of smithing and the workign of steel has enabled me to pull off some intersting feats- and had people wondering if I had some special powers. I never saw it as anything special- I told them as much. I'd just say that the kind of knowledge or "sense" I had was routinely found in oldtimers, and attribute any success I had to the oldtimers who had taught me and to the Brooklyn Technical HS education. I was fortunate to come into the field at the time I did. I came to realize I came into my profession just as an era and way of life in the USA was ending- the era when we were a heavy manufacturing nation. Some of my posts touched on this.
This forum has been a great outlet for me to share what I've seen and done along the way, as well as to vent, bemoaning the passing of the era I started in. It's a great "place" to meet all kinds of people and share all kinds of knowledge and then some. I've had the satisfaction of meeting Adam Miller through this forum. I've watched him come through his education as a mechanical engineer. I've followed Adam along as he learned shopwork, cut his teeth building his "CliShay" locomotive, and now is heading for his degree as a mechanical engineer. I've signed off Adam's recommendation so he can sit the exam for the first part of his professional engineering license. If I read Adam rightly, I think he is also heading to become a mechanical engineer who will work on powerplants. While my own son might not follow in my footsteps for his chosen career, it looks like Adam Miller might come pretty close. Maybe I corrupted young Adam and had some hand in turning him into the next generation of powerplant Mechanical Engineer. It's nice to know that there is at least one young M.E. who will come off the shop floor, perhaps carry on something like I did, and work on powerplants. Thanks to this forum, I think some of what I worked at and picked up over the years will be carried on by Adam in this next generation.
On that same note, while attending the course to become a Certified welding Inspector, I was approached by a young lady, asking for help with the course work. She had opened the conversation with something like: "You seem like a smart fellow, can I ask you to help me with some of this stuff ?" I replied I "don't think I am all that smart...I'm just an oldtime engineer and dinosaur and I think you're blowin' smoke." The lady told me she thought I was precious- talk about getting a swelled head. After I tutored her and some other guys in the course, she asked what would happen when guys like me were gone. We became friends and the lady had me mentoring her in all sorts of areas, far beyond the course work or the technical side of things. It turned out she is also something of a blacksmith, as well as a hell of a fitter. In discussing things with her, we discoverd we both tended to realte some of "life's lessons" to the workign of the steel in very similar manners. She came to visit us in NY state this past July, and my wife and I pretty much adopted her into the family. We put her on an "airhead" BMW motorcycle and she rode with me through our hills. She had never seen machine work done up close, so she spent some time in my shop, and I showed her the basics of things like turning, and cutting screw threads and simple milling operations. We rode many miles over the back roads and I showed her the stuff I work on for real and for fun. The result is the lady is now hooked on a lot of things she had never been exposed to previously. We've got another 1978 r 100/7 BMW bike out in the garage for her, awaiting some proactive repairs. I asked the lady what color she wanted her motorcycle to be, and her answer was: "I want to be just like you, Joe- make it black, same as yours." When the times comes, I'll be giving this lady away in marriage. I suppose I will offer up some kind of homily as to how a good wedding and a properly made weld are much the same.
I've tended to apply the machine work and the working of the steel to my own life and to interactions with others. It hasn't been a bad philosophy. Machine work teaches care and patience and thinking things through. Forging and working the steel also teaches life's lessons if you think about it. I've used this type of thinking in various aspects of my life and haven;t gone too wrong. On one occasion, I even use dsome of this type of thinking when I've delivered a eulogy for a friend, likening the loss of a human being to dealing with stress cracks and stress risers in the steel. I guess I never did stray too far from the shops or the forge, and I suppose I'll come home to it. Meanwhile, this forum is a home of sorts, and I thank everyone for being there and making it all happen.
