Here a little more about Knight foundry. I'm sitting here at the computer and hope I can get dates etc sort of right.
Knight foundry is in Sutter Creek, California. It's on highway 49 which travels north/south through what is known here as the Mother Lode country. It was the heart of much of the gold mining industry for many years. There are many interesting historical sites along the way, including an operating stamp mill near Downiville, the Empire mine in Grass Valley which has an operating line shaft machine shop run by volunteers, underground mine tours at the Lincoln project in Sutter Creek and of course Knight Foundry. Highway 49 passes through Coloma, site of Sutters mill that was the starting point for the gold rush.
Knight foundry dates from 1873 during the hardrock mining era that followed the original placer gold rush in 1849-1850. Almost every town with significant mining had a foundry and Sutter Creek had several. They made equipment for the mines and mills. Samuel Knight came from the north east and was said to have been a ships carpenter. He turned up in Sutter Creek where he worked at the Demerast foundry and seems to have been experimenting with water wheels even there. The Knight foundry was a complete machine shop, pattern shop, foundry, blacksmith shop and pipe shop. They designed and built a wide array of equipment and had a drafting room and did engineering of all kinds for the mines. The foundry is an ASME (American society of Mechanical Engineers)historical site because of all the design and development work done there. Knight designed and did a great deal of work on water motors, which are small high speed high pressure turbines. Knight was a contemporary and competitor to Pelton. The Pelton wheel and Knight wheel are very similar, but the buckets in the pelton wheel are divided where the Knight are not. A competion held a mine indicated the Pelton design was slightly more efficient and after Knight passed away the use of Knight wheels gradually dimished. Knight seems to have been the "brains" of the outfit and after his death the foundry continued mainly as a job shop. It was purchased by Carl Borg in the 1970's and ran until shortly before Carls death in the late 1990's. It is now owned by Richard Lyman who is holding it until a group can raise enough money to purchase it and run it as a historical foundation.
The site contains a lot of stuff, much of it from the 1800's. In the shop there are two pit lathes which were almost certainly made there, plus a very large pit lathe in an adjacent building, also made at Knights. There is a large planer said to have been made at Knights, a shaper, a smaller planer, a drill press, two very old lathes, a large radial arm drill and a smaller drill press, a pattern shop with lathe, band saw, table saw and face lathe. Thousands of patterns, some from the 1870's, a file of engineering drawings from the 1870's. All of the machines are in full working order and run powered by Knight water motors. There are about 11 water motors in all that run different machines. In the foundry are two cupolas, a core oven and lots of foundry tools. The cupolas are not in good shape and will need renovation before they can work. I had the great good fortune of helping on about 15 iron pours before the foundry was shut down. Let me tell you, molten iron is HOT!!
There is lots more to tell but this is getting way too long.
Thanks for the interest. Joe Harralson
There must be a measure of satisfaction knowing you have used the oldest operational machine tool in the country. I would sure enjoy making a few parts on it. I wish I lived closer to Knight Foundry and could be personally envolved, although you're right, monetary envolvment is probably more important. Our apathy and procrastination may just kill it.
IMG_3733 by Chris Attebery, on Flickr
IMG_3745 by Chris Attebery, on Flickr
IMG_3748-Edit by Chris Attebery, on Flickr
