Man on the street:

What is THAT??!?!?

Crescent Machine

Part of my being useful is driving around to fix stuff.  I get to see miles and miles of miles and miles....  I see miles and miles of Texas routinely.

I found this beauty peeking over a fence a few years ago.  A Crescent Universal Woodworker.  Here's a little history of the company.

I only saw the top half of the upper wheel at first

I stopped and asked about it, and NOT FOR SALE was pretty obvious.  Down here where the flares are burning and the H2S wafts on the breeze, this old lady has started to really get rusty.  Not sure, but H2O and H2S under the right conditions look like the parents of H2SO4.

Unusable gas flared off across the Eagle Ford Shale (the purple outline)

Seems a man came to town working on the railroad they put in.  He stayed as the construction moved on down the line.  He purchased this machine (patent 1905) and began constructing windows... The old double hung sash and window weight type windows...  Made a LOT of windows...  For decades... Most probably, the majority of the houses built around this town at that time had his windows.

The old man that owns this and the house it sits at, hopes to make a museum of the early days of the town it's in.  But no one is really interested to help him.  The city already has a small museum.  I guess they are vested in that one, and not interested in his vision.  

I remember quite a few years ago, the yard was covered in stuff.  There was an old timer who'd wave as I passed by.  After he stopped waving, the open top roll off container showed up and history (or maybe just his story) went to the scrap heap.

Crescent made some really neat stuff.  You can see this was a flat belt driven machine. Overhead line shaft?  Old tractor?  Stationary plant?  Not sure what was used to power it.  It's a band saw, table saw, jointer combination.  No serial number plate I could see.  I imagine it's on the margin of being too rusty to restore.  But you never know until you try.  

Vintage Iron is tough and resilient.  Just like the men that used it to build the nation we live in now.  I sure hope the next batch of folks will be able to just maintain what was built....

If it hurts, it's true.  Toughen up.  Learn a trade.