pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on tue 30 mar 04
of the broader aesthetics of earstwhile sundry Housewares...
Hi Wayne,
Oh...wow...what a trip! ( as they used to say...)
I will send you a couple images later...a few things I have
handy here...of the 'UNIVERSAL' way-of-faith...so keep an
eye peeled for 'em...
More below, and amid your mentions...
----- Original Message -----
From: "wayneinkeywest"
Now...too, one time I think you mentioned you are into some
of the old Wood Working and Carpentry Tools...
You might find this curious:
I have (still I think) a nice enough, old pattern, simple,
sweet, Walnut likely, maybe 26 inch, Plumb-and-Level
reading, Wooden Spirit Level... ( - as I got in like 1980
and have not looked at in
a long while...)
The brass guard as goes across the 'level'
Spirit-Bubble-Vial..saying in tiny Roman fonts with a faint
'Eagle' stamped there too...
"Hall & Knapp"
And further down I think...
"New Britain, Conn"
Now, as a fun trivia question...what would you know about
it...! - ?????
In fact, if you get it right ( no reading up now before
hand! No 'google searches now...no calling anyone...) you
can have it for your
Birthday ( That is, if you want it..)
But you gotta tell me quick now, off the cuff...! All on
your own!
> Phil:
> It is highly amusing to me that you mention
> Landers, Frary and Clark as being the makers
> of the old Universal meat grinders.
> (Knockoffs are still being made in Asia, from
> the old dies, some of which still say
> "universal" on them)
Oh - funny...!
> I was born and raised in New Britain,
Wow!
> (also
> home of Stanley Works and Fafnir Bearing,
> for those of you so mechanically inclined.)
> My grandfather's first (only) job on emigrating
> from Germany around 1900 was shovelling
> coal into the furnaces for the forges at
> Landers, on Elm St. I can still picture it, though it
> is long gone now. (Later,
> my father started work there as an apprentice
> for the tool and die program, at the tender age
> of 15. Nine kids in the family, eldest boy leaves
> school and goes to work to help.)
>
> At first the forges put out coffee pots
Yes yes yes yes and yes...!
And...
"GRIND COFFFEE MEDIUM FINE" they all said, on the
basket...and they meant it, too...
The 'early' ones having the little proprietary Alcohol
Burner 'neath
'em...usually Nickle Plated copper, or Brass maybe...all
around...and very sweet...
And thence, the Stove Top models ( as I have used every day
since I was in my teens) having the 'flat' base as then
narrows or skinnies beneath the Body proper...as was
intended to soak up the heat from the Iron Plates on a Wood
or Coal Stove or Range surface as it were...but as work well
of course on a Gas Range or Stove such as I have...
These Coffee Pots do not seem to like....'Electric Stoves',
but do well on certain Electric Hot Plates.
Almost all of these Coffee Pots off all their sorts, being
of the Spun ( whether of Aluminum
or other)
kind...made on Spinning Lathes by 'hand' as they
say, over or in Maple or finished or segmented-demountable
Iron or Brass forms...lots of
Germans and Swedes in them days, being about these kinds of
labors too...
Mine has the hollow-bolt fastening on the Spout, afterwards,
in World War One
they ( L.F. & C. ) got the knack of welding the Aluminum
spouts to the Coffee Pot body...kinda like they got the
knack of making those welded-up Alunimum Canteens for the
Army.
All the various Pots had a numerical name-code-dessignation,
as said
their model and rated capacity in Cups., mine being a
"No.79" I think, meaning the Nine Cup version of that No.
"7" shape and it's designated medium ( Aluminum). I have a
"No. 76" as well. Used to have many of these, various
Models...thinned them out...'purges' of the archives...
My Alcohol Model, being a "No. 206", meaning, I think,
second Shape-Model, and in the six-cup version...all Nickle
Plate in those days and Models...( I am not entirely sure,
but that is my surmise anyway...but I might be all wet on
that...their numbering system...)
> and other sheet metal appliance parts. During
> WW1, production was changed to bayonets
> "to fight the Kaiser", and in WW11, production
> shifted again to helmets and ammo box parts,
> "to fight the dirty krauts".
And to their making on Contract, of the Mdl. '03 Springfield
Rifles too I think...I believe I have seen them as said
'L.F.& C' up on the barrell's end or other...
> My grandfather shovelled coal into the furnaces
> for all of them. (He fled Germany in response
> to runaway inflation during the Kaiser's rule.)
> He often told me of the problems
> he had being assimilated into
> the culture here. In one instance,
> there was a corner in the furnace room where
> the shovellers would go and spit. The furnace
> room was located in the basement, underneath
> the forges, which today would resemble nothing
> so much as a 100 ton press. All day long,
> earsplitting pounding going on above you, blast
> furnace heat all around you, breathing coal dust
> and sweating. This was before OSHA, BTW.
> The work after all was hot and dirty, the room
> easily reaching temps of over 100 in the summer.
> Coal dust is not exactly uncommon either, probably
> why my grandfather died of TB in the late 60's.
Golly...
> Because the shovellers were mostly German
> immigrants and not "true Americans", one
> day in 1944 or '45 the foreman decided to give them
> some grief, (we were fighting the Germans) and
> hung an American flag in that corner. Of course, none
> of the men would DARE spit on or at that flag, being
> grateful as they all were to have been allowed into the
> country (through Ellis Island...but that's another story)
> and working, and so the spitting stopped.
....sigh...
...hell, that foreman shoulda hung that Flag over to the
side a little more and let 'em spit where they were used
to...
Americans have allways spit...
I do...
And right on the floor too as one should, well, in the Shop
I mean..not in the Kitchen or in people's Homes and so
on...same as they did I expect...overall...'dusts' and so
on...why not?
Thomas Edison did too...all the time...
They all did...
> The factory closed after my grandfather had long since
> retired..late 60's I believe.
Yup...that is my understanding...old "L.F.& C." closed in
the '60s..after being bought out by somebodyorother...but
they were on the skids by then anyway...so...some other
company...bought 'em and let 'em die for some reason...it
did not make a great deal of sense to anybody at the time,
whatever it was...
It had all changed so much by then, the culture had changed
so much by then, I think, there was just nothing cool for
them to do anymore, their day was 'done'...all the spunk was
gone for making meritoriously earnest or ingenuously solid
Housewares...just junk and the facile 'marketplace' by
then...how depressing...whatever was left of them I think
just rolled over and died...
And then too, as well as beginning with, or having been
early on with their making Coffee Pots, they got going on
all sorts of handy and good
looking Housewares...in the ohs and 'teens and
'twenties...one thing after another...almost all very Very
good at least, many truely timeless and excellent...some a
little wacky...overall one hell of a lot of excellence and
practicality. All of which even now hold their own very
securely...for what they were intended to do, they do it
well, and look good doing it too. They endure...
> One day after the factory
> closed, my grandfather asked me to go on a walk with him
> and we headed the ten or so blocks to the old factory.
> We went down into the furnace room, silent now.
> Shovels still lined up along one wall, in a row.
> In one corner hung an old American flag, which my
grandfather had
> me retrieve and fold carefully. "It is a matter of
respect" he
> said.
> He was buried with that flag. That's how much being
allowed into
> the US meant to him.
Man...that is so tender and amazeing...I can't say anything
now...
> I still have my mother's Universal. I use it
occasionally.
> My grandfather shovelled the coal that helped form it.
And as fired them Boilers for the Steam as turned the
Engines for running all the shafts and belts for the
Spinning
Lathes and all..for forming mine too...
> And helped form this country.
> Wayne Seidl
Yup...
> > "UNIVERSAL" ( ...my favorite Brand of most general
> > housewares) being "Landers Frary and Clark" of New
Britain,
> > Conneticut, made several versions, some fairly large...
(snip)
Wow Wayne, this all just blows me away...
More later...off site...
Your pal,
Phil
el vee
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