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Post by dwayner2 on Sept 15, 2020 0:31:11 GMT -5
My old lab asked me to do some restoration on their roller gin that’s about 60+ years old. There still are a few places that service these things but they’re not too cheap. I agreed but warned them that the last time I worked on it was 20 years ago and I had parts left over when I was done putting it back together.... not a very good endorsement of my skills. 🙁 Here it is before I started any work on it... It had some issues with the lower straps attached to the crank shaft. Contacted the USDA lab down the road and was able to replace them with parts from another gin they had. Below are pictures of it after the new parts were installed, both of the blades sharpened and after I got it all cleaned up. And yes, I did have one washer left over when I was done, but I do know where it goes, it just wouldn’t fit between the bolt head and body. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 😃
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Post by vaporvac on Sept 15, 2020 23:23:40 GMT -5
That is the coolest thing!
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Cotton Gin
Sept 15, 2020 23:47:04 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by dwayner2 on Sept 15, 2020 23:47:04 GMT -5
Story has it, Eli Whitney invented the roller gin to help reduce the need for slavery in the South. The slaves would spend months pulling the seed from the lint before it was sold to the textile industry and the gin was suppose to make that obsolete. But, now that the slaves had more free time they were put into the fields to grow even more cotton. An example of a good idea gone drastically wrong.
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Post by Chuckie on Sept 16, 2020 11:08:50 GMT -5
Story has it, Eli Whitney invented the roller gin to help reduce the need for slavery in the South. The slaves would spend months pulling the seed from the lint before it was sold to the textile industry and the gin was suppose to make that obsolete. But, now that the slaves had more free time they were put into the fields to grow even more cotton. An example of a good idea gone drastically wrong. ...I've DRANK a lot of GIN over the years, and BOY, did it EVER give me "cotton mouth" in the morn!! Dunno IF there's a connection here or not?... CHEERS! Chuckie
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Post by mach12 on Sept 16, 2020 11:56:16 GMT -5
That really turned out nice. All kinds of questions come to mind like does it actually get used or is it more of a display or teaching aid? Are the seeds good for planting when they've been run through it? Did you find where the parts went from last time?
Chuckie: I've never been too wild about gin but that was before my surgery and my sense of taste has totally changed. Once travel is safe again we're going to have to set up a project to retest my likes and dislikes of stuff like that. Kind of like my project to sample different beers when we lived in Germany. I brewed beer for years so it was a scientific endeavor but a lot of the time I forgot to take notes and between sloppy handwriting and slopped beer, much of what I did write is illegible. I really need to redo a bunch of my research.
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Cotton Gin
Sept 16, 2020 13:58:59 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by dwayner2 on Sept 16, 2020 13:58:59 GMT -5
Chuckie, you might be on to something there. I myself detest Gin so I can’t offer any inputs on the cotton mouth affect. 😐
Mach12, the gin is used on a regular bases and has been for maybe 60+ years. Only thing we saved was the seed for planting and just tossed the lint. It’s used for ginning single crosses or individual plants. The big gins use saw blades that run thru a series of metal ribs so that the seed doesn’t get chopped up. Those can be 8” saw gins all the way up to several feet across.
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Post by pooka on Sept 16, 2020 15:28:55 GMT -5
Eli Whitney's gin revolutionized cotton processing & really created what was known as "King Cotton". It made cotton so much cheaper & vastly more profitable. Before, wool was king. It also made slavery more entrenched in the south. They vastly expanded acreage of cotton, & turned the bulk of slaves into field hands.
Right now, I'm reading a book called "Hunters Stew And Hangtown Fry, What Pioneer America Ate and Why". In it, a traveling Frenchman notes that southerners even use slaves to drag the ploughs, because they're cheaper to keep than mules or horses, & think the land is thus "better cultivated". This starved the south of development by later waves of emigrants who steered clear of the south, because there was no need of labor, & little other opportunity. Newcomers flooded into the Northwest Territory that would later become Ohio, Indiana, Michigan & Illinois. It was wide open virgin land. Many would clear & establish a farm, only to sell it off a few years later, then move further west to new virgin land. This crippled the south to be forever burdened with the sin of slavery, & put all their eggs in the one basket of agriculture. Their lack of industry & a more diversified economy is what lost them the war. The north had three times the population, & a wide ranging economy that could be turned to support a war effort. It's not weapons that win wars. It's men, industries & economies.
In another book I started to read a while back that was set during the Civil War, there's a part that describes Henderson, the city & county right across the river from me as perhaps the wealthiest on earth per capita because of the prime tobacco grown there. It also says the population was forty nine percent white. Now, it's a smaller town of no particular note. Mostly still agricultural, with a little industry. There wasn't even a automotive bridge till the 1930s, although there's been a train bridge for much longer. If you wanted to drive, there was a ferry.
Eli Whitney was from a tradition of creating improvements in order succeed & prosper. Only in a system of freedom & liberty can that concept thrive. In more oppressive environments, there's no incentive for innovation. Why think of a better way if it doesn't improve your life & profit you. If you so choose to give your ideas away if you want, that works too, but it must be a choice. Ben Franklin's patent for the lightning rod says that it's free to be used by anyone, because he thought it was too universally needed idea to profit from. He made plenty enough money through printing & publishing, & I'm sure other endeavors.
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Post by pooka on Sept 16, 2020 16:04:12 GMT -5
A note on liquors from myself. I spent my youth drinking less impressive brews & spirits. Back then we drank for effect, not for flavor. For many years, I drank tolerable beers, but developed the habit of pairing it with a shot of Jagermeister. When I connected with my last room mate, I adopted a broader palate, but started regularly drinking Guinness Stout or gin & tonic. Guinness was often not available or pricey, so I drank a lot of G&Ts. Fun fact. Tonic glows under black lights used in some clubs of the time. I prefer the top shelf stuff, but I'm not that particular. I never was a fan of whiskys, be it scotch, bourbon or others. Southern Comfort was the only one I could stomach on occasion. But that's a liqueur, or whisky with other stuff added for flavor. The very smell of bourbon turns my stomach. I've read the distinctive bourbon smell that offends me is derived from corn oil.
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Cotton Gin
Sept 16, 2020 16:12:18 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by dwayner2 on Sept 16, 2020 16:12:18 GMT -5
“In more oppressive environments, there's no incentive for innovation. Why think of a better way if it doesn't improve your life & profit you.”
That is so true and a reason Communism and Socialism doesn’t work, no incentive to improve because you’ll never benefit from it. What’s going on in this country right now scares the hell out of me and that’s why.
As for the South, It’s well known they were way behind the North as far as technology and military advancements but so often people believe that’s the only way to win a war, not true. When I was at Mach12’s a couple years ago I bought a 5 CD set of the battles of the Civil War and from what I comprehended from watching them, the Confederacy actually won MANY more battles than the North. The problem was, once the battle was won they retreated to prepare for the next battle. If they had kept advancing on the Northern armies after several key battles, the war may have turned out differently.... towards the worst I dare say. Never underestimate the determination of an inferior foe, look what happened to the British during the Amer Revolution.
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Post by vaporvac on Sept 16, 2020 16:16:07 GMT -5
Loved reading that, Pooka. I'm going to see if I can find a copy or if free online.
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Post by pooka on Sept 16, 2020 16:49:33 GMT -5
True. George Washington lost more battles than he won, but he won when he really needed to. Plus, the occupation of America was bankrupting the English. The south had some brilliant officers, but if you don't have sufficient troops & supply chains to back them up, there's little war craft that can overcome that. Even if they had won the war, I don't think they could have sustained the peace.
At the beginning of the war, for the south, it was about maintaining & expanding slavery. The Cornerstone speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens says that very clearly. The document of succession from each state also say so, often in the first few sentences. For the north, it was about preserving the Union. Lincoln wrote in a letter of August 22, 1862 to Horace Greeley,
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
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Post by pooka on Sept 16, 2020 17:01:32 GMT -5
vaporvac, it's an old library book I got at Goodwill. It interested me, because it's about how our diet has changed & why. Kind of where our food came from. One tid-bit so far in a thickener made from sassafras leaves used in the south called filé powder. You had it, or okra used in dishes in New Orleans. "Filé powder, also called gumbo filé, is a spicy herb made from the dried and ground leaves of the North American sassafras tree (Sassafras albidum)." I'd never heard of the stuff & don't know if it's still used.
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Post by nana on Sept 17, 2020 19:59:23 GMT -5
Well finally I understand that line from the old song “Jambalay’, crawfish pie, file gumbo”!! I always thought it was filly, like a young female horse. And thought unkind things about the Cajuns for eating horses. Live and learn!
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Post by pooka on Sept 17, 2020 23:59:00 GMT -5
Yeah, me too. I looked it up, & you can buy the stuff, & some people make their own. It does have a cancer causing toxin, but it's in such small concentration, it's doubtful it would cause a problem. It is illegal to sell products containing it, but you can buy the spice by itself. You are not suppose to add it to your gumbo till the end, right before you serve it. It supposedly adds an earthy flavor. It's something we learned from the native Americans. And of course okra comes from Africa.
What most people don't know is the natural root beer flavor comes from the sassafras root. The filé powder is made from the tiny new leaves, & not mature leaves. Some make an herbal tea from the root also. Sassafras tree's range is most of the states east of the Mississippi river. And as far north as the southern parts of New York over to the lower part of Michigan.
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Post by pooka on Dec 7, 2021 23:56:52 GMT -5
This thread wandered way off the starting point. Blame me because my mind goes in a dozen directions at one time. Well to bring this full circle, I just ran across this reddit post of a video of a cotton gin in action. It's a bit different type than the one dwayner posted at the beginning. In the comments, the guy says it is used for research purposes much like dwayner told me he used to do. Laboratory scale cotton gin
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