A while back I took some of my worn out dies, used with my 90 ton press brake, to a local fellow that refurbished them for me. He had a belt driven reciprocating surfacer.... It did a nice job on my 12' dies... Here's the work being done on one of my dies.... The cutting tool is stationary and the part moves.... Notice the belts are "jumped" back and forth between pulleys in order to change the bed travel direction. The smoke you see coming of the tool is caused by the tool friction as it's cutting the work... https://youtu.be/q9o5_zN3exE When factories were powered by steam and the machines were run off of shafts, pulleys and leather belts..... https://youtu.be/UY4RZ-FEi6M
I love old equipment like that. A friend of mine sells machine equipment (high end CNC stuff), but his shop is all WWII era equipment that he rebuilt. He has done some work for me with his metal lathe. He has it all mounted on nicely finished pallets so he can move it when needed.
It's all Y2K proof... Remember that scare? Heh Heh..... Didn't bother me a bit.... And my stuff can't be hacked.... I have one metal roll that was built built in the late 1800's..... It still gets used... And still gets the job done... Good tools can't be beat... All my machines were made in Merica.... A lot of them aren't made here anymore... Had the same fellow rebuild my Bridgeport mill. He hand worked all the ways... And brought it back to original tolerances...
I once worked in a shipyard shop that some rollers for making cylinders from flat plate, it could roll up to one inch plate, it was made at the turn of the century.
I can't say that my profession had better equipment "back in the day." Photography/Graphic Design tools when I started just in the 80s suck compared to what I use now. It's nice to see that some old tools are still relevant. CD