On May 1 the Tod Engine Foundation took posession of leased space that will become our "Restoration Shop". The building that we are leasing is about
3,300 square feet of a former steel mill powerhouse. It is broken up into three floors, each about 17' x 75'.The building is reinforced concrete and brick, a fortress of a building if I ever saw one. Built in 1916, my space was orginally used to house switchgear for the 3500 kw and 1500 kw steam turbines out in the main bay. The first floor will become a fab shop, the second floor the machine shop and the third floor will be converted into an office for the Foundation and also a library of our collection of steel mill information and technical books. The second floor has windows all along the west side, and has plenty of light for doing any kind of machining work. How will I get the machien tools to the secodn floor you may ask? Well, the adjacent bay has a 20 ton crane and there is a double door onto the second floor of my area, so its a simple matter of hoisting the machinery up to the second floor and rolling it through the doors into my space. The machine shop will soon be the home of our collection of ancient machinery, including our turn of the century Hendey lathe, Schumaker & Boye lathe, two Cincinnati Bickford drills, Sellers planer and hopefully a couple of machines from out in California. Its a perfect setting for recreating a turn of the century machine shop that will be used to maintain a 1914 rolling mill engine.
Rick Rowlands Tod Engine Foundation Youngstown, OH