This link was posted on another forum and I thought some here might enjoy it too. It's a series of photos of a vintage foundry & machine shop:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/33523379@N03/sets/72157648586082640 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/33523379@N03/sets/72157648586082640)
Thanx for posting Ray. Absolutely wonderful photos. A wealth of material......Allan
Glad this place was preserved. Fascinating stuff to behold, thanks for sharing. For anyone on the left coast of the USA that wants to see something real similar to this, check out the Coos Bay Ironworks if you are ever in that area. It is like stepping through a time portal into the late 1800's. Real similar to this shop, and they are actually still producing Steam Donkey parts there! Click here to visit their site. (http://www.coosbayironworks.com/)
Edit to add: I absolutely love this product description for the Coos Bay Ironworks King Donkey:
Quote" Simple construction makes field repair easy
and modifications possible. If you have a set of big wrenches, a BF Hammer and can swear like a real logger, then you too can make nearly any repair in the
field. Throw in a set of torches and you have a modification-ready operation to address almost any scenario."
;D
Wow! It looks like the W.A Young Foundry and the Coos Bay Ironworks have nearly the same model Whitcomb planer!
A public image from Vintage Machinery.org
(https://www.finescalerr.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vintagemachinery.org%2Fmfgindex%2Fimages%2F2975-A.jpg&hash=1d7c78b21514322cee87bc7d28741cf721973a35)
Not sure about posting the flicker images without permission, so click here to view the planer at the W.A Young Foundry. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/33523379@N03/15455957100/in/album-72157648586082640/)
And click here to see a real 1890's vintage photo of the one at Coos Bay Ironworks. (http://www.coosbayironworks.com/CBIPhotoGallery7.html)
Quite a coincidence both of these historic shops having a really obscure machine like that Whitcomb Planer. I can get lost looking at old machinery like this for hours on end.
Update: The planer at the W.A Young Foundry is actually one of Whitcomb's competitors, Woodward & Powell. Click here to see the image. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/33523379@N03/21520905881/in/album-72157648586082640/) So, not the same manufacturer, but very similar machines. Still quite a coincidence that these two historic and still functional line driven machine shops on opposite sides of the country have one of these. Pretty sure planers fell into disfavor not long into the 1900's as milling machines came into prominence to perform surface planing.