Any grindstone experts?

[Bayleaf]

As a step towards the restoration of Shepherd's Wheel, we're compiling an inventory of the building's contents. The Wheel was a grinding hull, specialising in tableware and pocket/penknife blades. The blades were wet ground to give them an edge, then glazed before being returned to the cutlers for finishing. I'm not very well up on industrial history, but I can recognise a grindstone, and a wood and leather glazing wheel, but can anyone tell me what this kind of stone was used for please?

And as a supplementary question, there are some markings carved into this stone. At the right hand side of the central hole is a cross, and nearest the camera is what appears to be a stylised letter'T'. Any clues as to the significance of either or both?

[vox]

As a step towards the restoration of Shepherd's Wheel, we're compiling an inventory of the building's contents. The Wheel was a grinding hull, specialising in tableware and pocket/penknife blades. The blades were wet ground to give them an edge, then glazed before being returned to the cutlers for finishing. I'm not very well up on industrial history, but I can recognise a grindstone, and a wood and leather glazing wheel, but can anyone tell me what this kind of stone was used for please?

And as a supplementary question, there are some markings carved into this stone. At the right hand side of the central hole is a cross, and nearest the camera is what appears to be a stylised letter'T'. Any clues as to the significance of either or both?

I've asked an expert. The chap who owns Wigfull Tools at Porland Works. They still have old Saddle Grinders in use at their place. His first reaction is that the stone could have been shaped for grinding a profile, but without seeing the photo can't be sure.

It's also possible that the stone has been "for instance" rounding off the ends of bar material. This would eventually result in a deep groove. Then they would move across the face to a new section. When the face was completely worn, as in the photo, the whole stone could be "Dressed" in one go. This obviously extends the life of the stone.

I'll print the photo and show him next time I'm down there.

[Bayleaf]

I've asked an expert. The chap who owns Wigfull Tools at Porland Works. They still have old Saddle Grinders in use at their place. His first reaction is that the stone could have been shaped for grinding a profile, but without seeing the photo can't be sure.

It's also possible that the stone has been "for instance" rounding off the ends of bar material. This would eventually result in a deep groove. Then they would move across the face to a new section. When the face was completely worn, as in the photo, the whole stone could be "Dressed" in one go. This obviously extends the life of the stone.

I'll print the photo and show him next time I'm down there.

Thanks vox that's really helpful. So far we've catalogued the larger of the two hulls, but I know there's at least one if not more stones in the smaller hull like this. I'll look more carefully and see whether they all have the same size and number of grooves etc.

[vox]

I just emailed Andy Cole at Wigfull Tools with the photo attached. Knowing he's not on The Net very often I rang him to tell him to log on.

Sod's law - his modem has busted. Not on line at the moment.

If he's not fixed soon I'll print it off and take it down there.

[Guest skeets]

As a step towards the restoration of Shepherd's Wheel, we're compiling an inventory of the building's contents. The Wheel was a grinding hull, specialising in tableware and pocket/penknife blades. The blades were wet ground to give them an edge, then glazed before being returned to the cutlers for finishing. I'm not very well up on industrial history, but I can recognise a grindstone, and a wood and leather glazing wheel, but can anyone tell me what this kind of stone was used for please?

And as a supplementary question, there are some markings carved into this stone. At the right hand side of the central hole is a cross, and nearest the camera is what appears to be a stylised letter'T'. Any clues as to the significance of either or both?

HI Bayleaf l can remember seeing a stone like this being used at the Union Grinding Wheel at the end of Alma St it was being used to grind gouges a tool used by joiners and carvers and others . Skeets

[Bayleaf]

HI Bayleaf l can remember seeing a stone like this being used at the Union Grinding Wheel at the end of Alma St it was being used to grind gouges a tool used by joiners and carvers and others . Skeets

Thanks Skeets, that makes a lot of sense. I don't know whether they ever ground gouges at Shepherd Wheel, but as we've gone through the stuff it's been apparent that not everything belonged there, some being brought to store while it's been out of use, and some as 'window dressing' so it could well be.

[mike142sl]

I wondered about gouges whan I first saw it but if that was the case each groove would be more likely a different width for different sized tools. It's the T that's got me thinking though, and wondered if it might have been a transfer wheel (if that's the term) with something like a main rope connected to the 'power' and other ropes connecting separate machinery like you would see in the old cotton mills.

[mike142sl]

Apparently there are some similar but larger looking stones at Burton Weir on the 5 weirs walk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzypurple/138534707/

[vox]

I wondered about gouges whan I first saw it but if that was the case each groove would be more likely a different width for different sized tools. It's the T that's got me thinking though, and wondered if it might have been a transfer wheel (if that's the term) with something like a main rope connected to the 'power' and other ropes connecting separate machinery like you would see in the old cotton mills.

Sounds plausible but I can't see them using stone wheels for that purpose.

I think you mean Line-Shaft pulleys. I think these would have been wooden, probably with metal "rims" and almost certainly would have had flat belts to transfer the drive.

If I remember rightly from Thos Ellins, who still had a few grinders working from a line shaft when I was there, the reason for them not being "v" belts was so they could dis-connect an individual wheel without stopping the whole shaft. They used a long pole to "knock/lever" the belt either off the pulley altogether, or up and down a step to a smaller or larger pulley to change speed.

Here's a picture of something similar, although much later, by the look of the bearings and the brickwork.

Would you believe I can't find a decent picture of the ones at Abbeydale.

I can't find a picture of step pulleys for gear changing either.

Edit:

On the other hand, the more I look at it, the more it looks like a pulley. :huh:

[dunsbyowl1867]

Apparently there are some similar but larger looking stones at Burton Weir on the 5 weirs walk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzypurple/138534707/

Came across these the other day! Here's a few photos.

[mike142sl]

Looks like nothing more complex than a 'spacer'

[SteveHB]

Looks like nothing more complex than a 'spacer'

Mike I think you will find that the stones were arranged like that for artistic reasons,

nothing to do with the way that they were used.

Another from The Five Weirs Walk

[mike142sl]

That just shows how simplistic my mind can be???

With so many knocking about it's surprising they aren't more well known.

[dunsbyowl1867]

That just shows how simplistic my mind can be???

With so many knocking about it's surprising they aren't more well known.

Or for sale at a car boot lol

[SteveHB]

Here we are they are rollers as used in an early Bar Mill,

I knew that I had seen them somewhere before.

Unlike cast iron wrought iron can be heated and rolled into long strips or sheets

(rolling iron into sheet and bar form had been practiced since the 1600's but in 1783 a chap called Henry Cort,

who owned an iron works, developed a method of producing iron bars quickly and economically in a rolling mill with grooved rollers.

The following year he patented his 'puddling' process for converting pig iron into wrought iron and these two inventions had a significant effect on Britain's iron-making industry.

Due to his partner being found guilty of fraud Cort's patents were confiscated and thrown open to all and British iron production quadrupled in the next 20 years. Cort's machine represented a real improvement)

as the grooved rollers produced bars of standard thickness and allowed bar-iron to be made at a much reduced cost,

the market price of iron fell by about half as Cort's system spread.

In a rolling mill ingots of wrought iron (or mild steel) are heated to red heat and passed between rollers to form them into sheets and useful shapes, the rollers can even emboss a decorative pattern on the metal.

The rollers were typically four or five foot long and about a foot or eighteen inches in diameter.

At each end was a short stub,

perhaps nine inches in diameter and a foot or so long, which served as the axle for the roller.

Henry Cort's rolling mill was designed to accept different sets of rollers to allow a range of shapes to be produced. Large numbers of spare rollers were often seen piled up about the place, usually outside and visible,

http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/12-linind/wiretube.htm

==============================================

"James Cockshutt was one of the first to appreciate the value of the

invention of Henry Cort, patented in 1784, for puddling and rolling iron

and, soon after 1787, the necessary furnaces were erected at Wortley Low Forge

together with, at the Tilt Mill, the first bar mill with grooved rolls to

be erected in Yorkshire .

An old rolling mill of this type from Low Forge is now preserved at Top Forge."

Image and text courtesy of -

Forging Ahead: A Conservation Statement for Wortley Top Forge, 2009, South

Yorkshire Trades Historical Trust, Sheffield, UK.

Link to www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums Wortley Top Forge

[vox]

Great work Steve :)

[Bayleaf]

Nice find Steve, but are we there yet? The rollers in the picture appear to be metal, whereas the ones at Shepherd wheel are sandstone, and most of the others pictured are stone too. Would stone rollers be used with red hot metal, or would the stone fracture in the heat?

[SteveHB]

Nice find Steve, but are we there yet? The rollers in the picture appear to be metal, whereas the ones at Shepherd wheel are sandstone, and most of the others pictured are stone too. Would stone rollers be used with red hot metal, or would the stone fracture in the heat?

It's hard to make out looking at the Top Forge photo Bayleaf,

the spindles are definitely made of iron but are the rollers made from the same.

I'm no expert but would have thought that stone would stand up to the heat,

were not stone pots once used in in the making of bronze and the melting of iron ore.

[vox]

Andy Cole did suggest to me that they may possibly have been used in pairs to grind bar material after it had been rolled.

[SteveHB]

Andy Cole did suggest to me that they may possibly have been used in pairs to grind bar material after it had been rolled.

The more searching I do the more I become convinced that my answer above is incorrect,

in other words It's doing my head in

I have come across another one uncovered by the flash flood we had last June,

this is in the stream that runs through Jervis Lum - Norfolk Park.

I'm not suggesting that there was any industry in the Lum area,

as Bayleaf has covered a reason for in the Rivers Topic.

[vox]

Logically I suppose that if they were in fact rollers, then the grooves in them would decrease in size. These all look to be the same depth.

[Guest tiz]

Sounds plausible but I can't see them using stone wheels for that purpose.

I think you mean Line-Shaft pulleys. I think these would have been wooden, probably with metal "rims" and almost certainly would have had flat belts to transfer the drive.

If I remember rightly from Thos Ellins, who still had a few grinders working from a line shaft when I was there, the reason for them not being "v" belts was so they could dis-connect an individual wheel without stopping the whole shaft. They used a long pole to "knock/lever" the belt either off the pulley altogether, or up and down a step to a smaller or larger pulley to change speed.

Here's a picture of something similar, although much later, by the look of the bearings and the brickwork.

Would you believe I can't find a decent picture of the ones at Abbeydale.

I can't find a picture of step pulleys for gear changing either.

Edit:

On the other hand, the more I look at it, the more it looks like a pulley.

off topic so my apologies but that picture took me back to being a young lad working at copes brickyard ,our machinery was all belt driven and one weekend we were asked to come in and tidy up, being a good lad i scraped all the clay off the drive wheel, instead of getting a slap on the back from the manager i got a clip round the ear ,the clay was what he used to adjust the tension of the belt

back on topic,the original grindstone looks like it may have been used for grinding points on such things as garden forks

[Guest beemerboy]

Hi, bayleaf, this is my first time on here so of we go, the marks on the side of the stones were to signify the person who owned it. These stones started off at a considerable size,could be 5ft in diameter, the owner bought them from the quarry and rented them out to the little mesters,firstly to the sythe maker then to the butchers knife grinder then to the table knife mester and so forth as they wore down they were trimmed and rented down the line, the marks were there to help him keep track and prove they belonged to him.

Eventually the stones would finish up as cawkes and were discarded. I live in wickersley where we had 29 quarries and supplied Sheffield and the world with these stones. I have 26 of these stones of various sizes and often sit looking at them and wonder how many families these lumps of stone kept alive !

As for the grooves I believe they were something to do with tool grinding the person to ask is Ken Hawley but you will have to find him in Sheffield 6.

[Bayleaf]

Hi, bayleaf, this is my first time on here so of we go, the marks on the side of the stones were to signify the person who owned it. These stones started off at a considerable size,could be 5ft in diameter, the owner bought them from the quarry and rented them out to the little mesters,firstly to the sythe maker then to the butchers knife grinder then to the table knife mester and so forth as they wore down they were trimmed and rented down the line, the marks were there to help him keep track and prove they belonged to him.

Eventually the stones would finish up as cawkes and were discarded. I live in wickersley where we had 29 quarries and supplied Sheffield and the world with these stones. I have 26 of these stones of various sizes and often sit looking at them and wonder how many families these lumps of stone kept alive !

As for the grooves I believe they were something to do with tool grinding the person to ask is Ken Hawley but you will have to find him in Sheffield 6.

Thanks beemerboy, and welcome to the forum! No-one seems to have seen these stones in situ, but always lying around so presumably worn out and discarded. Interesting about the marks, thanks for the information.

[SteveHB]

Came across this .. The Butcher Works looks like they were used in razor grinding, file grinding, etc,

scroll down to Panel/page No. 5