Tool making in Sheffield

^woody^

^woody^

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Never mind Netflix this lockdown, check out these videos on tool making in Sheffield in the 60's.

Ken Hawley Collection Trust - www.youtube.com/c/KenHawleyCollectionTrust/videos

Some amazing insights in to how things were made and the sheer amount of work that went into making things like a saw, a knife, scissors or even a file - especially a file.

I'd always imagined big factories churning out lorry-loads of stuff at a fast pace, but it seems that it was small workshops, one or two people almost casually pottering about! And best not mention the H&S.

Ultimately, very sad to see the decline of what was once a great industry.
 
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I love watching how things were made in the 'old' days. All craftsmanship and very little sign of automation.
 
I'm surprised you didn't know about the "Little Meisters". But did you know that Sheffield wasn't the only centre of tool manufacture? Some tool making towns gave their names to tools (e.g Warrington hammers, Exeter hammers, etc) while other names were more generic (e.g. tower pincers, Lancashire pattern pincers, etc). A lot of the work in tool making was subbed out in all of these toolmaking centres (and perhaps surprisingly the same sort of system was in place in Germany until WWII). Some tools were still being made in Warrington as late as the 1980s, but by that time it was mainly files (Stubs)

Ken Hawley was an avid collector of tools and his collection was donated to the museum at Kelham Island in Sheffield which will be well worth a visit when we get clear of CoVid
 
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conny said:
I love watching how things were made in the 'old' days. All craftsmanship and very little sign of automation.
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It occurred to me that in many cases, the person became the machine and just seemed to follow an automated process along with the other machines. But perhaps that could be said for many factory/machine shop type jobs.

Have you seen the one about the fork polishers? I could not believe that was an actual specific job, and oh the number of processes just to polish a fork!

But check out the clip of his hands and fingers and when he shows what could happen when a fork went through the polishers hands! And he said the average life of a fork polisher was 28 because of the dust.
 
JobAndKnock said:
I'm surprised you didn't know about the "Little Meisters".
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It never really occurred to me, but thinking about it, the same sort of thing was going on near me in central Birmingham and the back country but in different industries.

The social aspect struck me too, as it seemed that from an early age right up until they dropped down dead, those people just lived to work, no holidays, no leisure time, get up work, go home sleep repeat, day-in, day-out. No work no food. But those interviewed actually enjoyed their jobs, and took pride in it.
 
Charlie George said:
Can't believe i just spent 30 mins watching an auger being made,i don't even own one, love watching this stuff.(y)
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Wait till I link you to some old Japanese tool makers next. There is one guy making a saw and actually planning steel like it's a bit of wood.
 
^woody^ said:
It never really occurred to me, but thinking about it, the same sort of thing was going on near me in central Birmingham and the back country but in different industries.,
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Or in the Black Country for that matter with it"s once myriad lock makers, nail makers, chain makers (and I can remember the sound of trip hammers being used to produce forged chain on Hayes Lane in the Lye back in the 1970s - do they still exist, I wonder?). Not quite tool making, but seeing chain being forged and welded from red hot steel bar is fascinating. You could stop on the pavement and peer through the doors into the gloom to see guys forming the chain only a few feet away kin some cases. The heat given off was ferocious in summer.

I can also remember that there was quite a big tool industry in Cannock with several firms making hammers and one firm (Elliott-Lucas) who made all sorts of pliers and squares,
 
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^woody^ said:
It never really occurred to me, but thinking about it, the same sort of thing was going on near me in central Birmingham and the back country but in different industries.

The social aspect struck me too, as it seemed that from an early age right up until they dropped down dead, those people just lived to work, no holidays, no leisure time, get up work, go home sleep repeat, day-in, day-out. No work no food. But those interviewed actually enjoyed their jobs, and took pride in it.
Click to expand...

I sometimes drove through Birmingham, past Fort Dunlop where the road was elevated. One Christmas I saw it was true. The only day of the year you could look out over the city and see the horizon without smoke and fumes from a thousand chimneys blocking the view.
 
Liverpool used to be famous for it's docks, (still is to an extent though it is now based at Seaforth on the fringes of the city). It was also famous at one time for it's sail making and rope making with a few old warehouses bearing the ghost advertising of their trade. Sadly these buildings have either been pulled down or converted to apartments and their previous existence all but expunged from memory.
 
JohnD said:
I sometimes drove through Birmingham, past Fort Dunlop where the road was elevated. One Christmas I saw it was true. The only day of the year you could look out over the city and see the horizon without smoke and fumes from a thousand chimneys blocking the view.
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That's probably a bit before my time, :p but I've worked in the regen areas afterwards. There are many photos at the Black Country Museum along those lines, of the glory days of manufacturing around there, and I don't think anywhere else would have, could have had so many smoke belching chimneys so close together and for as far as one could see.
 
On the same sort of lines, have a look at this guy on youtube, videos in India (and China), people sat out on the street making things

Sadly no big knockers.








 
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