Something Unique

 

(This continues a series of entries explained below in ‘Something I’ve Made’.  If you read that first installment, you’ll know I’m jumping around a bit in the order of the assignment - but rules are made to be broken after all….)

 

 

 

I would have liked this entry to be about a pair of cast metal ewers that sit proudly by the fireplace in my Great Room.  They are heavy and solid yet delicate in their fine detail, and they have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember – first gracing my parent’s home and now my own.  But unfortunately, I know so little about them that their story cannot be told – and all those who could tell it took it with them when they departed this earth.  I know that they were hand-crafted by a relative - a great or perhaps even great-great Grandfather if I recall correctly - but the circumstances of their creation are now lost to the ages and there is no proud family history of great forgers or decorative iron-workers upon which to fall back, so they will need to remain ‘only’ a delight to the eye and a physical link to a relative who shall remain forever faceless and nameless despite the beauty of this physical reminder of his existence.

 

 

 

But instead my subject will be a relic of an industrial past that was at least partially intertwined with my own life and working career for many years.  I’ll tell you a little more about my working life in the entry revolving around a ‘gift received’ in a day or two, but suffice to say that the very effective doorstop pictured above is a link to a simpler time when ingenuity solved many challenges at low cost, and time was not so much of the essence as it always seems today.

 

This is a miniature version of a ‘ball mill’ - used to grind paint pigment to a uniform size.  Coarse granules of colored pigments were placed in this vessel, along with a number of the ceramic balls and other shaped objects pictured here.  The lid was clamped down tightly and the mill was placed on a set of mechanically-driven rollers that spun for hours and hours – slowly letting the ceramics grind the pigment to a size acceptable for use in making quality paints and other coatings for any variety of industrial and consumer uses.

 

This was a research-sized mill – the baby brother of massive tanks that were used in actual production for many years in the first half of the last century.  I found it one day in a heaping pile of trash stacked outside an old storage room at work.  While it obviously no longer served a useful purpose, it was a part of the history of the industry and I couldn’t see simply relegating it to a landfill. 

 

I consulted with some of the ‘old-timers’ and listened to their stories of howthese were used and – even better – what work life and life in general were like in those times, and then cleaned my new-found treasure up and put it to alternative but still productive use as a combination doorstop / conversation starter in my office.  For as long as it resided there, it always seemed to bring a small sense of peace and a reminder of simpler times – and that gift alone made its rescue and salvage well worth the effort.