Engineer Porn....but good for we commoners too!

[webbie]

The other night I ended up watching all 4 parts of this on the laptop.

Fascinating! It's the culmination of metalwork and engineering. They even show their secret foundry and how they make molds from wax, etc.

 

[Flatbedford]

I watched the whole thing. What an operation!

 

[webbie]

I watched the whole thing. What an operation!

I was truly amazed - all those little things which would be impossible to do from scratch, but which are handed down and built upon. It's a great example of why toolmaking and memory (writing, documenting) moves humans forward technologically.

It's also neat to see that technology drives many companies as opposed to raw profit. If profits were the only thing, they'd just sell all those factories and become a trading company...it's much harder to produce something.

We rarely think about it, but when we fly it's usually on their or GE engines. Both are pretty amazing and getting more efficient with each model.

 

[Flatbedford]

Two things come to mind.
Anybody who does not believe in evolution should have look at engineering or industrial design.

I'd love to work for a company that takes such an interest in its employees.

 

[webbie]

The title is slightly misleading, but the Book "Arms of Krupp" is a great look into the evolution of metalwork over the centuries and the German ideal of small family run industrial firms. (yes, they built many a gun which fired upon us, U-Boats, etc. )....

The book starts out with a regular dude who goes out into his workshop a couple hundred years ago and fiddles around after work. Then he harnesses a small stream near the house. Then they find coal nearby. Then he hears about and sees the British steel and figures out the proper techniques for steel forging. Along the way they make silverware machines (very high technology, actually) as well as over 1/2 of the railroad wheels used in the USA back in the 1800's.

It was all the "family" of apprentices and hand-me-down knowledge. Workers were not "labor", they were "Kruppianers"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp

Some amazing industry. During WWII we and the brits would bomb them almost daily, turning the entire place into swiss cheese. Still, they would shift production to the less damaged areas and be up and running almost immediately.

Interesting tidbit which shows the corporate nature of war. Krupp has the patents on artillery shell fuses. The British Firm Vickers was paying Krupp a commission on every shell the Brits fired at the Germans! They paid ALL monies due...