12 Comments Posted by S10Calade

Another awesome set. Thx Motts!

Awesome set Motts.
I wish it still looked this good. We wanted to take one last trip though this past summer before it was supposed to be demolished and things have really gone down hill. Much more graffiti and stone deterioration.
It used to seem like a relatively safe place but on this last trip we found many shell casings and much more gang graffiti than seen on previous trips.

New set! Sweeeet!

Thanks Motts!!

Yeah, what Debbie said. This would make an awesome wallpaper

New gallery! Thanks Motts. Time to sit down w/ a beer and enjoy.

Awesome set Motts, can't wait for more.

Motts,
That would be a tire molding machine. It's used during the curing process. Bascially, they take the unformed tire and place it in the bottom portion of the mold. Next, an air bladder is placed inside the uncured, or green as it's called, tire. Then the top of the mold is set in place and the large cover door is closed. The air bladder that was placed inside is then filled with air forcing the uncured into the mold faces, thus giving it a tread pattern and any lettering that may be on the tire. This process would take about 15 minutes. This is a relatively old process as many tire now are injection molded.

I leave town for a week and Motts posts new pics.
Great stuff Motts, thanks for the new gallery.

Alright Motts, I gotta know on this one. You said you stitched some pics together, did you have to Shop the hell out of this pic to match them up? Or do the fixtures just look that fake?

I know that this is waaaayyyyy after the fact but, these are in fact air exchange units. No, I cannot provide pics of one due to the fact that many industrial air exchange units are one-off machines but, I can tell you how this type works.
If you look at the doors, there are 2 sets of hinges on each of the 4 doors. The top set of hinges hold the "control doors" that are used to regulate air flow speed and direction (many of the older units didn't have multi-speed fans). The reason you cannot see belts, pulleys or fans is because they are contained in the section connectiong the upper section to the lower (the connection way can be seen in the photo).
The larger set of door (ie. the one that open) is referred to as the maintenance door. These doors are to provide access to the internals for cleaning and air filters. Many times, filter elements are placed in side the wire mesh to filter the air as it passes out of the machine. These units are also multi-directional units, meaning the air can flow from either top to bottom or bottom to top. This feature was used in different seasons for better heating/cooling efficiency. Usually, they would run upflow in the summer and downflow in the winter.
Hope this helps Motts, even though it came about 2 yrs. too late.

The lab equipment would have been used for quaality control on incoming steel. Large manufacturing companies found that it was more cost effective to certify their own steel vs. buying steel with a certificate.
If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that these were used for oxidation and durability testing, hence the "Acid Steel" writing on the test tube.
It was common practice to immerse steel into different acids and record the reacions to guarantee that the steel was not contaminated or weak.

Motts,
Longtime lurker, first time poster. This is awesome and the blur makes this photo complete. The blending between new and old is fantastic. Love the shots.