Interesting outing this morning...

[b.lindsey]

The old engine club I belong to now has a line shaft driven "old" machine shop on the county park property where we hold our annual festival. We needed some additional line shaft pulleys and centers especially and our primary founding member I think knows everyone within a hundred mile radius. At any rate he knows the guy whose family ran this old flour mill/machine shop/cotton gin and lord knows what else back in the early to mid 1900's. There happened to be some remaining line shaft with pulleys still in place so we took a little road trip this morning to go fetch it. Not the best of mornings....39 degrees F and rainy (even some snow up in the NC mountains). Anyway it went pretty well, we got the line shaft section that we wanted down (carefully) and then sawed the shaft in half to help load it onto the trailer. The shafting itself was of no interest and actually broke after sawing half way through.  Here are a couple of pictures of the location and the line shaft loaded up.

Bill

[Brian Rupnow]

Looks fascinating Bill. i wish there was enough interest in that sort of thing around here for me to get involved.---Brian

[b.lindsey]

Brian, we hope to have our machine shop running for next year's show. Actually it was ready this year but we didn't have anyone to operate it for the weekend. Thus far we have a line shaft driven lathe and a pillar drill also line shaft driven. IIRC there is also a very old line shaft driven grinder in the shop now...obviously before the days of OSHA and rather lethal looking with the two big rocks just hanging out there in free space. Both the pillar drill and the grinder look a lot like those sold by PMR in their machine kit line, so does the lathe for that matter.

Bill

[Don1966]

Thanks for the photo's Bill, that mill has seen it's better days. We don't have anything like that around here either just our Cypress sawmills. Unfortunely this town is not where I grew up. My memory goes back to the cotton gins and corn mills when I went with my dad to grin corn to eat and cotton to sell. Would love to see a setup like that here. I guess it's the country boy in me.

Don

[b.lindsey]

Thanks Don...wish I had taken a few more pics but it was dark inside...we were working with flashlights. Actually the centerpiece of our annual show is the operating cotton gin circa 1910. This year we ginned 3 bales over the weekend, each was around 300 pounds, the vertical bale press can't compress it much more than that. It brings back memories for lots of folks around here too.

Bill

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Bill, great job you guys are doing. I love old line shift shops. My bucket list contains one line shaft machine and blacksmith shop on a hobby scale.  I see you got the cold weather also, we were 29 this morning.  Thanks for keeping old iron alive.

Rev. Cletus

[Roger B]

Good stuff, I do like proper old machinery   

[b.lindsey]

Thanks Eric and Roger. We have a blacksmith's shop too as a matter of fact. One of our members often does blacksmithing exhibits for a small local museum and mans the blacksmith shop during our festival weekend. The blacksmith shop an the machine shop adjacent to it are part of what is called the pioneer village at the park. The initial buildings (built by the club on county property) are located in a more central part of the park and include the engine shed for the 37 1/2 HP Fairbanks Morse diesel engine which runs the gin and bale press, and the adjoining gin building. The gin is upstairs and the bale press extends down to the ground level where the bull gear and jack screw are located. The press pushes up to compress the cotton, and both the gin and press are also line shaft driven from the Fairbanks.  I have posted pictures of the diesel engine before I think.

Bill

[Don1966]

Bill I would love to see some photos of that cotton gin.

Don

[b.lindsey]

Don, if the weather is a little nicer tomorrow I will go take some. The park is literally just across the road from me. I had not imagined there would be this much interest actually..lol

Bill

[steamer]

Don, if the weather is a little nicer tomorrow I will go take some. The park is literally just across the road from me. I had not imagined there would be this much interest actually..lol

Bill

Welll Daaah!     

Check your PM.......   

[Maryak]

Anyway it went pretty well, we got the line shaft section that we wanted down (carefully) and then sawed the shaft in half to help load it onto the trailer. The shafting itself was of no interest and actually broke after sawing half way through.  Here are a couple of pictures of the location and the line shaft loaded up.

Bill

Hard yakka getting that lot down.............good going. Just a thought but seeing as how the shaft broke half way through the cut have you given any thought to ringing, (tapping with a hammer), the pulleys which hopefully have not suffered the same deterioration as the shaft.

Best Regards
Bob

[b.lindsey]

Yes, and a good point too Bob. The first step will be to get the pulleys off of the shaft. Most of the larger pulleys are split pulleys with a center core, and we were after some of the extra centers as much as we were the pulleys themselves.

Bill

[b.lindsey]

Its a beautiful, sunny, but cold morning here but I will get over to the park to take some pictures once it warms up a bit. In the meantime, I thought I had posted this video here before but it could have been at the other site. This is one I did a couple of years ago the weekend before the annual October show as the Fairbanks Morse was started up just to check it out before the big event.

Bill

[Don1966]

Awesome Bill, that's a hell of a glow plug heat up. Those Fairbanks engines are some work horses are they?

Don

[b.lindsey]

They are indeed Don!!  What amazes me every year is that the engine sits there (covered by the engine shed) but still subject to the winter and summer temperatures and humidity, and yet it still starts on the first try when October rolls around. At 37.5 HP and with that 6' diameter flywheel, the old girl barely feels the load of the gin and bale press. I have now taken more pictures over at the park. As soon as I upload them to Photobucket I will post them.

Bill

[b.lindsey]

OK, I'll see if I can get this to work since I rarely use photobucket.  First up are some pictures of the Pioneer Village section where the blacksmith shop and machine shop are located. With the exceptions of the blacksmith shop and the machine shop, all of the remaining structures were relocated from parts of the county and are authentic buildings. The blacksmith shop and machine shop were built by the club members over the last 5-6 years.

The first picture below is of an old farmhouse with barn in the background


The second picture is of this same farmhouse and another next to it


Next is a view down "main street of the village. At the end of the street is the church and this was originally the first church building of a local Presbyterian church that generously donated it to the park. The building datea back to the early 1900's and is actively used for our Sunday morning service during the annual festival. On the right hand side of the picture is the blacksmith shop (foreground) and the machine shop next to it.


The signage for the blacksmith shop


Next door to it is the machine shop viewed from the spectator side. This would be open of course during the festival but only from about waist high upward so as to keep spectators from actually going inside of the actual shop itself. You can see the end of the line shaft exiting from the end of the building where it will be connected to a hit and miss engine to power the shop.


The machine shop was designed and funding coordinated by one of our younger members as part of his Eagle Scout project.


Stay tuned...more to follow

Bill

[b.lindsey]

Next up and located in the more central part of the park are the Engine Shed and Cotton Gin Building. These structures were built by the club about 20 or so years ago and are actually joined together. The engine shed is on the left, and the two story gin building is on the right.




The open first story (ground level) of the gin building is used for registration during the festival, but more importantly houses the lower portion of the bale press shown in the below picture.


Some of the lower level line shafting is shown in the next picture. The large pulley on the right is the one connected to the Fairbanks Morse engine.


Next if the bull gear and pinion which raises the table (you can see the four legs of the table since it is in the fully lowered position). This press works in the upward direction. Ginned cotton is guided into the chute from the second story and when the chute is full the table is "screwed" upward, thus compressing the cotton at the top of the press located on the second story also.


To activate the bull gear there is a large driving wheel as shown below. A leather or rubber covered cylinder engages with either the outer diameter or inner diameter of this driving wheel via a lever which is controlled from the upper level of the gin building. This driving wheel is connected to the pinion gear and thus rotates the bull gear clockwise or counter-clockwise to raise or lower the table via the 4" diameter screw connected to the bottom of the table and which in this lower position, extends some 8-10 feet below the ground level.


The next set of pictures will be of the upstairs part of the gin building where the gin and upper part of the press are both located.

Bill

[Roger B]

Magnificent, there's been a lot of effort put in to that   

[b.lindsey]

The first picture is a close up of the near side of the gin itself. The entire gin operates with flat belts and or gears and in some cases ratchet gears with pawls where a feed-stop-feed-stop motion is required.



The next picture is taken from the "doffing" end of the gin where the now seed free cotton exits the gin where you can see the wooden roller and falls as a continuous sheet into the hopper shown. The brooms are used to guide it over to the chute of the bale press.



The next picture shows the "business" end of the gin.


Lifting the upper cover reveals a pin feeder roller which helps "open" the cotton bolls as it feeds them into the area below where the multiple sawtooth blades pull the fiber from the seeds. At this point the fibers collect on a screened drum (there is a slight suction inside the screened drum) and once the blanket of fibers gets thick enough it is pulled off of the screen by the wooden "doffing" roller shown previously. The seeds fall out from the front of the gin onto the floor where they are shoveled into bags for return to the cotton supplier along with the finished bales. The seed are worth as much as the cotton!


If you were standing at the front of the gin, the next picture shows the gearing and pulleys on the right hand side of the gin.


The next picture shows the upper part of the bale press there on the second story of the building. It is in this area where the cotton is compressed. If you look towards the bottom of the slatted enclosure you can see some iron "dogs" that hold the compressed cotton in this upper section even as the table is lowered back to its ground floor position. It takes probably 7-8 pressings to get a complete bale.


As I had noted earlier, the cylinder that controls the pinion and bull gear rotation, thus raising or lowering the table is controlled from upstairs and the lever that controls that is shown in the next picture. While filling the chute for the next pressing, it can be locked in the neutral position so the bull gear is not activated.


The final two pictures show the chute in the opened position (looking down to the ground floor level) and the closed position which it would be in during each pressing cycle.



I hope this isn't too much info and many thanks to those of you that have expressed an interest.

Bill

[b.lindsey]

Thanks Roger...it has all taken place over a long period of time. I think it is a testament to the original early designs of these gins that as crude and as basic as the mechanics are, they are still working even after 100 years!! 

[Don1966]

Bill I really appreciate you going through all the trouble to get these photos. That is awesome my friend and the gin looks smaller then the one I remember. Remember I had said the bales we would get were from 500 to over 600 lbs. A good bale would bring from $250 to $350 back then. When we would hire out to pick cotton we worked for 2 cents a pound. So you have to really move to make $5 a day. One of my aunt's could pick 300lbs of cotton in a day with no problems, she could out work a man. Thanks for the memories bud.

Don

[b.lindsey]

My pleasure Don and it was a beautiful morning here and nice to get out in the air for a bit. Being a city kid, I can't say I have ever picked cotton but certainly hear lots of stories from the old timers around here that did and most say it was back breaking work and very hard on the hands as well!! My early career was spent in the cotton mill though and I still love the smell of raw cotton.

Bill

[Don1966]

My pleasure Don and it was a beautiful morning here and nice to get out in the air for a bit. Being a city kid, I can't say I have ever picked cotton but certainly hear lots of stories from the old timers around here that did and most say it was back breaking work and very hard on the hands as well!! My early career was spent in the cotton mill though and I still love the smell of raw cotton.

Bill

You know there are a lot of people who don't know how hard it was back then. Get up before the sun to get in the fields and make it before day lite, shutdown at dark. Then unload the wagon and take care of the animals that they are feed. Milk the cows and by the time you finish taking a bath it is time to go to bed. We would take a bath in a wash tub, we had no bathroom. Those were not the good memories but there were good one back then.

Don

[ShopShoe]

Thanks for posting the photos of the cotton gin and press. I can imagine the work involved. Here in the midwest we did not have cotton, but the work of threshing crews (and the women who cooked for them) is legendary. I am the town son of a farm-raised boy who served them as water boy (with the help of his blind former coalmine pony.)

I am glad that this history is being preserved. It has taken decades for things to sink in, but I have gained some additional appreciation for the times my Dad lived in the 1920s and 1930s and what he was about when he chewed me out when I complained that he had me working too hard in the yard or garden.

--ShopShoe

[Steam Haulage]

Bill,
Great to see the actual machinery and opportunity to understand the process. I recall being told about ginning in school as part of a term spent looking at the geography(!) of the US, nearly 60 years ago. Everything comes to him who waits.
Good to see the care which has been taken with the heritage of the USA.
Pity we did not doo the same here in England.
Jerry

[b.lindsey]

Shop Shoe and Jerry, thanks for the interest guys. The main focus of the old engine group is to do just that in our small part of the world....keeping the history of agricultural, mechanical, and textile machinery alive for youngsters to see and for the "oldsters" to remember.

Bill

[fcheslop]

Hi Bill. Thanks for taking the time to show and explain the machinery .
Never having seen this sort of agricultural machinery its very interesting as are the buildings.
best wishes
frazer

[mklotz]

As used in this context, the word 'gin' is intriguing.  I always thought that it was a simplification of 'engine' but Whitney's patent uses 'gin' in its title.  I rather doubt that an abbreviation would be used in a document that formal.

Dictionaries indicate that the word derives from the Dutch word for juniper which explains the use of the word for the juniper-flavored liquor they invented but doesn't seem to have much connection with cotton or seed removal.

So, anyone have a (non-humorous) explanation of why it's called a 'gin'?

[fcheslop]

Looks as if the Gin to over from the wallowers
http://www.landshapes.org/newsandevents/news/HorseGin.php
As to the definition of the word .No idea

[b.lindsey]

Marv, maybe this will help  from the Online Etymology site:

gin (n.2) Look up gin at Dictionary.com"machine for separating cotton from seeds," 1796, American English, used earlier of various other machineries, from Middle English gin "ingenious device, contrivance" (c.1200), from Old French gin "machine, device, scheme," shortened form of engin, from Latin ingenium (see engine). The verb in this sense is recorded from 1789.

You were pretty accurate as to the shortened form of "engine." The Middle English reference might be most appropriate in this context though..."ingenious device"

Textiles has many strange terms from my experience....doff or doffing, sliver (pronounced with a long "I" sound, roving, slubber, nep and so on.

Bill

[Don1966]

Marv I believe you were right on the first phrase you mention. The word Gin is short for engine.

Don

[Roger B]

This is a picture of the typical line shafting on the front of a Swiss farm building. I am not sure of the details, but believe a stationary engine or tractor (possibly later an electric motor?) would be used to drive the milking and cream separating equipment as well as the hay dryer and the slurry stirrer and pump (lovely word slurry  )

[b.lindsey]

Roger, it seems line shafting is much the same the world over. I have to say that Swiss farmhouse looks substantially better than the old building we were in on Saturday, and I would bet its probably older too !! 

Bill

[Hugh Currin]

As used in this context, the word 'gin' is intriguing.  I always thought that it was a simplification of 'engine' but Whitney's patent uses 'gin' in its title.  I rather doubt that an abbreviation would be used in a document that formal.

Although Bill's analysis makes more sense, I found the following:

from: TEXAS COTON GIN MUSEUM
Why do they call it a cotton “gin”?
Eli Whitney’s invention in 1793 that removed the seed from the cotton fiber was called the “Little Cotton Engine”…. this name was quickly dubbed cotton “gin” – short for engine. After the Civil War – and the end of the cotton plantations – community gins began to spring up all over the country. The name “gin” became a household word. Ginning simply means separating or removing the seed from the fiber.

from: http://www.extension.org
How did a cotton gin get its name?
Eli Whitney has historically been given credit for inventing the cotton gin. The cotton gin, short for "engine", was a major improvement over hand separating cotton lint from the seed. The original gin could separate lint from seed 10 times faster than by hand.

from: www.cotton.org
The gin, short for engine, could do the work 10 times faster than by hand.

from: http://wiki.answers.com
What does gin mean in cotton gin?
Gin is short for engine.

But as history goes, one wrong reference can be propogated to many places. But if it shows up in enough places it becomes the "real" history.

Hugh

[mklotz]

Thanks to all for confirming my suspicions.  Now, it's warming up here in the land of fruits and nuts so I think I'll turn my attentions to some of the other kind of 'gin'.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Good idea Marv, don't let anyone out there know you were interested in ginning,  they'll be taxing you, studying you carbon footprint,  your solid waste impact, and they would probably require scenting the cotton with an organic compound that was not know to cause cancer in the Republic  of California,  just saying 

E

[mklotz]

...scenting the cotton with an organic compound that was not know to cause cancer in the Republic  of California,  just saying

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is not known to the Republik of Kalifornia to cause cancer.  Every place one goes, restaurants, big box stores, super markets, one sees a mandatory Proposition 65 warning... It is known to the State of California, yada, yada...

My suggestion to replace them all with the generic version...



has, so far, gone unheeded by the liberals in Sacramento.

I once parked in a parking structure that contained a sign warning that, at sometime in the past, the structure may have housed vehicles that emitted stuff known to the State of California, yada, yada.  So even the past is not safe from our ever-vigilant, ever-laughable government.  Retroactive finger wagging.

My ultimate goal is to get some laboratory to prove that, in the event of fire, Proposition 65 signs emit gases known to....  Then we can force the state to put Proposition 65 warnings on their Proposition 65 warning signs.  It would make my evil heart glow.

[steamer]

...scenting the cotton with an organic compound that was not know to cause cancer in the Republic  of California,  just saying

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is not known to the Republik of Kalifornia to cause cancer.  Every place one goes, restaurants, big box stores, super markets, one sees a mandatory Proposition 65 warning... It is known to the State of California, yada, yada...

My suggestion to replace them all with the generic version...



has, so far, gone unheeded by the liberals in Sacramento.

I once parked in a parking structure that contained a sign warning that, at sometime in the past, the structure may have housed vehicles that emitted stuff known to the State of California, yada, yada.  So even the past is not safe from our ever-vigilant, ever-laughable government.  Retroactive finger wagging.

My ultimate goal is to get some laboratory to prove that, in the event of fire, Proposition 65 signs emit gases known to....  Then we can force the state to put Proposition 65 warnings on their Proposition 65 warning signs.  It would make my evil heart glow.

 ....especially the Evil heart glow part!......