That is a sweet musuem and display of belt driven equipment, you are right Tubalcain they definitely made works of art when they built those antique machines. Spectacular video.

Again you've brought back my childhood memories! At 9 years, I spent my first entire summer staying with my grandparents and working in my grandpa's blacksmith and machine shop. Plus some farming. My first job when I got there was spring cleaning for grandma, then I went into the rafters to oil, grease, and clean the old machines in his shop. I recall my grandma bringing us our dinner meal and spotting me up in the rafters and running shafts, covered in grease and soot. I learned that grandma could tell out words I'd never have dreamed she even knew, much less would use!

My Dad worked at a flour mill, line shaft belt drive electric motor power. The building was five stories. At the end of the building was a large flat belt that went through all five floors. It had handle and a platform to stand on. This ran all the time, the motor was running. You just steped on the platform and grabed the handle, and zipped up or down. Just step off on the floor you wanted. What a time saver. I don't remember my Dad talking about grease monkeys. This was before OSHA, LOL. Thanks for the videos. Please give us an update on your health.

Great video. Enjoy seeing how machine work was done over One Hundred years ago. What some call primitive. But was made very Precious. Some still running today. Thank You for the pictures including your Lovely Young Wife.

As a young man I use to take parts to have boring, keying and lathe work done in a old shop like this. It had thick large wooden planking for flooring. I was always fascinated by the large wooden pulleys which sometime slapped the leather belts together here and there. The working machinists were at the time, seemed to be dressed in a a pin-stripe railroad-like uniform and hat. Also pyramid-like piles of metal shavings were under all the machines. Many years later the shop closed and I was lucky enough to acquire some various sizes of old wooden pulleys and glass oilers. I treasure them today. Thank you so much for your video and reminding me of those by-gone days.

I love the aesthetic of these old machines. They just don't put the same kind of character in the machines made in the last half century.

Don't give up on the faded slides. There are a couple of programmes that were made specifically to restore Ektachrome and the like. They work quite well.

Thanks Mr. Pete for taking me a long. I remember as a child the black smith shop in Tiptonville Tn. Has a lot of machine that were line belt driven. The steam engine was gone and replace by the largest electric motor that I has seen at the time. Thanks for taking the time to do these video, always enjoyable.

Thanks Lyle...We had a local line-shaft shop when I was 18yrs old {1950} which I visited many times It was a pretty large shop and they specialized in large boat shafts, propellers, etc. They were situated right on the water's edge, on Tampa bay, next to a boat yard..It was diesel powered IIRC.....I was working in a more modern machine shop at the time..I remember the wood floors shaking and the belts slapping when they were in full operation. Your video brings back some good old memories...

Hi Mr Pete, good to have you back to your old self again. I always look forward to your videos, I never miss one. Thanks again for being there. Please take good care of your self. From Sydney Australia..

As a child in the 1950's I would walk past this large building everyday on my way to school. I went thru all the grades K thru 6th. at the same school. The building was very noisy and was setback from the street, so I never saw any kind of sign for the building. Jump forward to the late 1970's when I was working for my friend of 55 years as of now. He has a antique car wrecking yard / scrap metal busines he has been running since 1953 and still does today 70 years later. We got a call to go to this same place that I had walked past everyday as a child to pick up a lot of scrap metal. It turns out it was a machine shop and all the machines were run by line shafts. This is the first time I had ever seen a shop with this type machines that were belt powered. Outside the building half covered up was a hit & miss engine about the size of a VW Bug car that was also for sale. The man who was selling everything show us a very large electric motor that replaced the hit & miss engine to power the shop. The name of the shop was I believe a French name Fontineers and this was in the town of Napa California.

Thanks Lyle, You added another stop to my bucket list. The bottom mounted rack on the lathe must have been a real pain requiring chips to be constantly swept out in order for the carriage not to bind up.

That is one of the best restoration/reproduction line shaft displays I've seen. I did not see any steam leaks or water droplets Mr. Pete so I believe you're right on the compressed air. Thanks!

So happy to see you well again! Thank you for taking us along on your visit. That is a really cool shop/museum! Thanks also for the origin of the term "grease monkey". I had no idea, although I've heard it and used it for most of my 60 years.

Great video Mr. Pete. The building that our home decor and gift shop is in was built in 1900 in Estherville, IA. It was a line shaft driven "planing mill". This was a wood working business that among other things milled wood for architectural trim. It was powered with a 5 HP Dayton engine located in the back room. When my Dad bought the building it was then used as a Western Union office but all the heavy timbers with huge bolts were still in place on the 12 foot high ceilings. The motor base was a concrete pad in a corner and I found a news article that mentioned a fire behind the building when lightening struck the fuel tank.

I love to see the old machinery running from overhead line shafts. How smoothly and quietly. Thanks, Mr Pete!

Absolutely fascinating! I love a machine shop, in any of its forms. Thank you for sharing. I, for one, really appreciate your efforts.

Incredible tour, Mr Pete. These old machines really strike a chord in my soul.

That was my first "job" as an oil monkey in a line shaft shop, Ros Brothers Machine Works. It had a big DC motor that ran the shop and a steam engine that ran the shaft and turned the motor for lights for when the power went out! Your video brings back a lot of good memories .

Lyle: thank goodness you are feeling better. This reminds me of my grandad's old shop. I was too young to appreciate it at the time. He used a old single lung hit and miss to power it. Also, I bought a copy of Bull of the woods. Its a HOOT!

What a great tour of the machine shop. Nice river boat ride.

Very beautiful images,mrpete.Thank you.

Very nice video Lyle. I assume we like the river so much because it's calming. No hustle and bustle of the world. A person just sits back and watches the world go by. Nice "line shop".

Love line shaft shops , thanks for the video 👍🏻🇬🇧

Thanks for the tour. People poke fun of Illinois a lot, but there is a heck of a lot of history to enjoy, not to mention some fine scenery.

Thank You, Mr. Pete, always fascinated with our ancestral technology. I've been in shops where the remnants of the line shaft are still hanging from the ceiling, long displaced by the electric motor.

You certainly are doing a lot of traveling. And making a lot of interesting videos. Thanks for the video keep on keeping on.

Aloha Lyle, I enjoyed the line shaft driven machines very much. So happy you are up and about again.

That was great Lyle! Thank you for that fascinating insight to a line shop machine shop. In 1970 when I was an apprentice my firm of church organ builders owned another company who turned ivory for stop knobs and thumb pistons for organ consoles in North West London here in the UK. The factory was going to be redeveloped and the turning shop was being relocated to the console shop around the corner in Bethnal Green East London. The original turning shop was all line shafting throughout the building which consisted of a number of different businesses including engineering firms as well. The turning shop had been in operation from the early 1890's apart from war work in the first and second world wars, at that location. It was fascinating to see all the line shafting up above the machines. Only the tooling was retained. The line shafting went to scrap as far as I can remember. Think of all that bar stock I could have had lol. I'd love to see more of the museum AND the river museum and aquarium, because I too am a river enthusiast and angler!

Fantastic museum setup!!! ‘Bout the only thing missing in that shop, would’ve been several many layers of caked on oily soot, grime, hardened grease, heavily oiled wooden floor slats &, many MANY random metal shavings strewn about! Now granted, not ALL machine shops from way back in the day weren’t allowed to get filthy dirty but, 9 x’s out of 10, yeah… at least for the shops like that, that I’ve personally been in & experienced firsthand, back in the ‘80’s thru early 2000’s, of which only a couple still exist (😭), they very much had LAYERS UPON LAYERS of “stories” to tell! Great filiming & glad you caught that bit of overhead clutch engagement/disengagement operation! TY Mr Pete!!

Wonderful video, and audio seemed great to me. Reminds mew of recent visit to my cousin's shop in southern VT - both of us near your age, he still running shop with a few machines still on line shaft. History in every corner there too but still a working place.

Good Sunday Morning Mr Pete!!! The Tennessee Mole Man 👍🇺🇸🍊🍊🍊🙏✝️

Thank you for sharing some of the manufacturing history with us ! 👍

Really enjoyed seeing this shop. Even though workers would try and be careful, they had to experienced accidents on a regular basis. No workers comp back then!

Very Interesting I love old line shaft shops like that.

As a boy and young man (I am now 75 years old) I can remember a shop on my uncle's farm with overhead shaft driven machines. The farm has long been out of my family after passing to a grandchild of my uncle. I never knew what happened to the machines but I expect they went to the scrap yard. I have in my shop a shaper that was build in Cincinnati Ohio in the 1880's that has been converted to electric motor with a mechanical variable speed control.

I have a Marvel belt driven hacksaw on my demonstration trailer. You don't see many these days. Thanks for the tour Mr. Pete!

Great video, I much enjoyed the machine shop tour! I used to watch an older gentleman that ran his shop on steam, loved his videos, but unfortunately, I no longer see any, old or new, in my feed. Keep up the great videos.

That was very interesting thanks. Some day I'll put a small line shaft behind one of my workbenches to run a a jewellers lathe and a variety of other small machines. It seems like a good idea anyway, but who knows.

Fascinating stuff indeed. Thank you. Southwest of my home town of Bolton lies Manchester that was a huge innovator of machine tools in the early 19th century onwards. Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry has a wealth of exhibits that your viewers might find interesting if visiting the UK. It’s part of the National ‘Science Museum Group’ (aligned with the Science Museum, London) and has exhibits connected with Henry Maudsley, Richard Roberts and the giant of engineering, Joseph Whitworth. Who hasn’t heard of ‘Whitworth threads’? The museum is full of historic stuff, too much to mention here, but some available ‘online’. I find your videos give me a warm feeling inside, that traditional engineering is still alive in many parts of the world - especially both sides of the Pond!! 👍🇬🇧👍🇺🇸👍

Wonderfully made video on a fascinating topic. Brevity is the soul of wit. And KZfaqs.

There was still an active metal shop powered by line drive system in Dubuque down in the south end of the mill work district. Had them fix a number of things when I lived there.

I read somewhere a lot of artisan wood carvers were hired on as pattern makers in the foundry years ago....And it shows. My Dad would buy and sell used machinery when I was a kid We were looking over a fire pump every thing on it was ornate. When i asked him why they dont make stuff like that now he said because back then people took pride in there work. Nice video I can smell the steam and oil

That was a very interesting video, nice to see how thing were made in the early days, thanks for sharing mrpete222, really enjoyed it, cheers from me. 😷👍👍👍👍👍

Another interesting video. Really amazing how far electricity has taken us. Kudos for calling out your wife in the video. I always thought it was a cool relationship you two had . Every auction I ever saw you at she was right there with you. Awesome. Hope to see you at auction soon.

Thank You, Mr. Pete, always fascinated with your videos!!!

Rough and Tumble museum and historical society has a machine shop that is recreated, and fully functional. I've sold machinable plastics to at least one of the machinists there for projects on the property, and this area is in close proximity to the blacksmith shop, and they have a smithing school, where one of the past students was a 12 year old girl.

Super video Lyle. Love the machine shop. I was lucky enough to work in a machin shop that had a VBM that came from that era over head belt drive with a 48" table she ran at one speed but did the boring and turning on giant cast bearing blocks for the steel mill. I had about six indicators on every axis to control accuracy . She could still do it too. Its been about fifty yrs ago now.

Hello to Mrs mrpete. Good for you for giving your sweetheart a shoutout.

Very neat shop. Wonderful piece of history. Could you just imagine working in that shop for 10-12 hours a day, it would have been very hot in there too I’d imagine. Loud, dirty, dangerous.. checked all the boxes for me ! Sign me up ! Haha

That was really neat,Mr Pete. Thanks for sharing your trip with us

Great Video Lyle, I get real euphoric when You do these Field trips... I'll have to make a Road trip down there, 230 Miles for Me... Much Thanks, Mike M.

Back in 1965 I started my apprenticeship in a small shop in Rochester ny ,Monroe tool and die ,they had over head belt running some Of the machine ,my job once a week was to oil the bearings on the line shaft the older men would get mad because I use to much Oil and it would drip on the floor.thanks mike

Mr. Pete I hope you are feeling better. I love how the creator of theses machines took great pride in their creations. Taking the extra time out and going the extra mile to make it not only functional but beautiful to the eye.

Good video Mr. Pete. That big drill press with the round table caught my eye. Thanks

Delightful. Yes, the castings are really nice. I may have told you there was a little in line shop a guy had in his house (two story, maybe 20 x 20) that went up for auction. He had shaper, lathes, drill presses and even a bridgeport. I think it was all bought by some Amish guys. I always marvel at the old machine and it truly shows the skill of the guys who worked them. Even the foot tredle wood lathes, just make me marvel.

A lot of old belt drive machines were converted to electric motor using truck transmissions.The trannys were usually perched atop or beside the headstock.This was a favorite trick by the "in" crowd.Maybe one day Mr, Pete will do a video on these machines

🗿thanks for sharing MrPete💯👍 enjoyed

Thank you for taking us along. They certainly did cast some beauty into some of those old machines.

Those line shaft factories are always interesting; but even more interesting is the origin of "grease monkey".... I always wondered and now I know. I'm a Brit now retired and living in Malaysia. Over here we still have monkeys trained to pluck coconuts from the very tall palms. Just like people, after they have harvested what they think is enough coconuts, they go on strike and refuse to do any more work for the day. Thanks Mr. Pete. Ian.

Cool! Thanks Mr Pete, and I look forward to the follow-ups.

Enjoyed, enjoyed, enjoyed.

Thanks again Mr. Pete! Love those old flat belt machines. At 9:29 you have the "Red Top Engine". Some of the best Ferrari engines were named Testa Rossa, or Testarossa, red head in Italian, for their red cam covers. Unfortunately I can see no connection between the two.

Amazing to see this, thank you for capturing it for all of us to see. There was a fabulous if eccentric man here in England named Fred Dibnah who was a national treasure, who built a stream engine powered workshop in his garden. Astonishingly, after he died, it was not preserved and turned into a museum. Very sad.

Great field trip Mr Pete. Thank you sir. 🖖

What a great tour! My only lathe is a WF Barnes #6 with patent date 1880 cast in the bed, it would fit right in there. I still use it for the occasional project.

That rack must have really been a great catch for chips! Cincinnati was a big builder of steamboat engines back in the day. Most of the places that built them have been wiped out by the ball fields these days.

Very interesting I too like history and am amazed how ornate items were. I guess it’s the pride of workmanship. Where today it’s all about the bottom line.

Awesome !! thanks! I'm glad to see you back at it!! stay well my friend.

Very interesting.

I had a summer job at a steel mill in PA. There was a shaft driven nail mill that was retired in place but had to be exercised periodically to keep the belts supple. When running it sounded like a machine gun battle.

OSHA would have a field day in that place.Manufacturers added decorative touches to machines cuz it was thought it helped sales,not because some were closet interior decorators.They also added pinstripes to machines.I once saw a Indian Motocycle salesroom from the early 1950s that had floral arrangements all over the place.They actually thought it would help sales

Thank you Mr Pete. That was fascinating.

Thanks for sharing .... Glad you are doing better ... Stay safe and well ...

Really enjoyed this Mrpete 👍👍 that sounds like a great day out.

One of the Amish companies we have done business with Waldemar Machine used to be in Liberty KY. They had a treadmill outside with horses that would run a shaft and belts to power their machine tools.

Thanks for the tour and hope your feeling Great now!

Grease Monkey, funny how that started. Thank You for the video

Thanks for sharing 👍

Nice look back in time thanks Mr pete

It looks like a lovely museum, as many have said it is a really nice reproduction. Another one for my list. I remember you telling us the story and even showing us a photo taken from a news clipping, but I would still be very interested in hearing more about your adventures!

Thanks for the great video.

I grew up as a military brat ( not brat, my dad was a Marine Officer. In 1964-66 I was in high school in Fallbrook Ca and on Main Street set back off the street about 25 yards was a old abandon machine shop. The 1937 Cord Berline hidden under o huge oak tree first caught my eye. As I was looking around the property to find out more info on car I found a flathead Ford V8 as a generator for the building as I looked in window of back door I discovered it was open and walked in. Overhead was a main shaft running the full length of the shop with 6-8 belt driven machines. In fortunately upon returning to Fallbrook after a tourer in Vietnam 1970 the car and shop was gone. So I like this video and operation

Those old line shaft shops are fascinating! And the old machinery was indeed eye appealing, people took pride in their work once upon a time. Today it would be much easier to make decorative machinery with the technology we have available, but no one cares to. Thanks for taking us along Mr. Pete! Glad you are over to covid and feeling yourself again. God Bless

Thanks Mr. Pete, enjoyed seeing this video

Good healthier morning, Lyle! Guess what I have in my kitchen? An antique wooden pulley wheel that might from some Northern NY factory... thanks for sharing your adventure! Hope you are feeling better!

Thanks for another interesting video MrPete.

My Great Grandfather had a shop similar to this in Nashville, TN.

Thanks Mr Pete great stuff we hope you’re doing well

It is nice to see a museum put together to try to give a sense of what an old machine shop would have been like. Thank you for taking us along with you! 😁👍😁

Thats was awesome mr pete. They have a similar setup at the vista steam museum in vista ca about a hour and a half from where i live i always enjoy going there 😊

Thanks or this one. I enjoyed it. Just imagine the machines that made the ones on display. The size and accuracy needed.

Enjoyed this video a lot.

On vacation this year we stayed at a place near Sevierville TN that had a 200+ year old grist mill on the property. Couldn't get inside, but could look through the windows and see a lot of the belt drive system, wanted to get pictures to send you but couldn't get good pictures through the dirty windows. Unfortunately they'd replaced the grinding stone with a more modern mill (maybe 50's system) when they reactivated the mill then, but it's no longer grinding meal. They did change the newer mill to use the belt system the water wheel ran instead of an electric motor though which I thought was pretty neat.

Great video. Thanks!

Good day to you Mr. Pete, that was a wonderful tour of an old belt driven machine shop.i too am very appreciative of old machinery which were cast instead of weldments that we mostly have nowadays.makes a fellow really appreciate those old pattern makers & foundry men.

Very interesting. Thank you

Nice video as always. If you want to go see a real authentic belt driven machine shop time capsule but you have to come to Pennsylvania. W.A. Young and sons foundry and machine shop. Rices landing. They too made parts for river boats and mining equipment and much more. It was closed and left as a time capsule until the Rivers of Steel group reopened it for tours. It's a must see for guys like u and me.

If you're ever near Rockhill, PA, the East Broad Top RR's shop is well worth the visit. It's line shaft shop as well.

Thanks for sharing