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The Big Melt: How Steel Made Us Hard, Documentary, 2013 IMDB

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dsl SX

2014-03-20 18:05

[Image: title.40.jpg] [Image: cover.jpg]
A BBC Four Storyville episode broadcast in Jan 2014, now released on DVD. Still available on BBC iPlayer at the moment, but may disappear in early April. "The Big Melt combines 100 years of footage from the BFI National Archive with a score [by Jarvis Cocker, ex-Pulp] recorded live at the Crucible Theatre for Sheffield Doc/Fest in June 2013 to tell the story of steel, the story of the men in the steelworks and the story of Sheffield." Mainly industrial/technology/engineering sequences - factories, foundries, furnaces, machines, laboratories etc - but more interesting than that sounds. Various bits:

Jodrell bank ("The Listening Bank"??)
[Image: jodrell22-05.jpg]

Making WW2 shells
[Image: makingbombs50-56.jpg] [Image: makingbombs50-56b.jpg]
- the big hammer was unexpected

Making Marmite :whistle:
[Image: makingmarmite01-05-29.jpg]

The Witton-James System (good name for a rock group?)
[Image: witton-jamessystem55-16.jpg]

An early Kraftwerk concert? :whistle:
[Image: kraftwerk26-27.jpg]

"A world without steel" cartoon animation
[Image: worldwithoutsteel45-07.jpg] [Image: worldwithoutsteel45-07b.jpg]
(must be a wooden steering column ....)

.... and finally, the absolute highlight of the film - an amazing 5 minute sequence of 1928 construction of Tyne bridge at about 30-00 - well worth the price of admission for this segment alone.

[Image: tynebridge32-12.jpg] [Image: tynebridge32-22.jpg]

[Image: tynebridge32-54.jpg] [Image: tynebridge33-04.jpg]

[Image: tynebridge33-54.jpg] [Image: tynebridge34-06.jpg]

[Image: tynebridge34-50.jpg]

dsl SX

2014-03-20 18:20

Rejects - too distant/fuzzy/background/whatever

car 03-30
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car 08-12
[Image: car08-12.jpg]

car 13-13 - something BMC like Wolseley 1500??
[Image: car13-13.jpg]

van 13-58 - 300E??
[Image: car13-58300e.jpg]

car 58-32
[Image: car58-32.jpg]

car 58-42
[Image: car58-42.jpg]

2 1950s Morris Minors in S Wales valleys after 57-00
[Image: minor57-20.jpg] [Image: minor57-45.jpg]

2 green Post Office Telephones vans at radio mast at 30-05 - BMC J2 and Commer PB
[Image: pophonevans30-05.jpg] [Image: pophonevans30-05a.jpg]

farm scene with tractor on right 03-54
[Image: farm03-54.jpg]
- I think the treshing machine is towed, and only powered by the stationary engine in foreground

johnfromstaffs EN

2014-03-21 18:29

The car behind the cycling club is a Ford V-8 Model 68 of 1936.

The threshing-box was certainly unpowered, and would have been towed to the site behind a steam traction engine in earlier times, and powered from the flywheel. I recall these things being driven from the pto of a Fordson Major, but when the combine started to appear they all retired very quickly - too much manual labour required, you cut the corn, bind it into sheaves, let it dry in the sun and then toss the sheaves up into the top of the threshing-box with a pitchfork so that the machine can remove the ears from the stalks. You then have to dispose of the stalks which is what the horse and cart appear to be doing. Get a combine and it's all done at one pass, no pitchforks required! I have never seen a threshing-box powered by a stationary engine like this, it's almost a throwback to the middle 19th century when the steam engine was not self moving and was towed to the site by horses.

Link to "www.allposters.com"
Link to "commons.wikimedia.org"
http://www.bottesfordhistory.org.uk/page_id__511_path__0p1p31p.aspx

-- Last edit: 2014-03-21 19:02:45

dsl SX

2014-03-21 20:56

I lived on Orkney for a few years in the early 80s, staying in a former farmhouse which had a steading which was used as a stables/riding school. One barn had an ancient wheeled threshing machine tucked in the corner and known by everyone as "the binder". Had not moved for years but was still used occasionally in situ for hay/straw processing for horse feed, despite the belts being totally knackered. I think they had a very decrepit portable stationary engine, but also used a derelict 1940s Fordson salvaged from a beach after we spent a summer getting it going. Orkney grows barley, wheat and for its dairy herds vast quantities of silage and now uses lots of combines, but each August has a car show with loads of portable stationary engines brought out as displays. Several farms still have threshing machines in the barns, and although no longer used, their era up there is not too far gone. I surveyed a now uninhabited island which was abandoned in 1966, until which point the crofters used a functioning communal thresher in one barn with a horse mill alongside, and the ruined remains are still there.

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