'Very much for the ferris phrenologists (metal heads )
It (arbor press) was a project assigned that required proficiency in many machines & fixtures - mill, lathe, dividing head, rotary table, calc/cut involute gear teeth, requiring base bevel to be hand filed. Like the little air motor - its purpose is exclusively to put a smile on one's face. A similar project often assigned was to make a 3D cross (think Dali's corpus hypercubus) inside a 2" cube from a single pc of metal - often required to be done exclusively on a lathe.
Understandable, Peter. Part of the romance of photo work is the diving into gear, process, masterful people. Minute contact w/ the metal can cause a similar fascination - which is some of what makes the metal folks smile. 'Strange looking motors that run on heat exchange - simply by having a candle or alcohol lamp nearby. The new tech is wonderful (like photography), but the the old stuff is also amazing & fun.
Nicely rendered and fits well with your appreciation of metal. Somewhere around here I have a small jack for use on a milling machine that I made in a class at the local vo-tech school -- I might should oughta find that and photograph it one of these days I need to finish a roll.
DWT & Jim. With heavy credentials in metal, hearing from you two is very much appreciated. Like many photos - they can be just a record. Minor White was paid to take record shots of Portland, as an era of architecture came to an end. Now, a manual transmission in a car/truck is an 'anti-theft' device - we're forgetting. DWT - the screw jack project - do it. Fancy/artistic or not - someone will be surprised that young people used to learn/create things out of metal themselves (other than code). Pouring gas on that flame of curiosity is a wonderful thing to do.