Outside the Foundry

Outside the foundry we find various things either made here, used here, or both. Above is a cable hoist of the sort used in the gold mines to raise/lower people and ore out/in the mine.

Water Power and Pouring Molten Aluminum

The motive force for sliding, turning, and drilling in this shop is water. While many of the large machines run from a large water wheel that distributes its power with shafts and belts, some are run by separate water motors. This is one built to run a single machine. the side panel is removed so you can see the water wheel inside that is driven by a jet of water coming in from the right. Several of these in the shop were made on site.

Knight Foundry Machine Shop

On past the pattern shop is the machine shop proper. Here we find a selection of tools as you would expect, but on a totally different scale from what you might expect.

Above is a drill press that is attached to a radial arm than can be moved up as much as 10-15 feet and horizontally 6-7 feet to accommodate most any size object you can imagine casting. And is was all built to run on a leather belt and pulley system driven by water.

Knight Foundry, Sutter Creek

After our many trips to Sutter Creek, I finally paid attention to the signs and discovered the Knight Foundry. Turns out that once a month the foundry have an open house and tours. I learned some pretty cool things on this tour.