Knight Foundry
Encyclopedia
Knight Foundry, also known as Knight's Foundry and Shops, is a cast iron
foundry
and machine shop in Sutter Creek, California
. It was established in 1873 to supply heavy equipment and repair facilities to the gold
mines
and timber
industry of the Mother Lode
. Samuel N. Knight developed a high speed, cast iron impulse water turbine
which was a forerunner of the Pelton wheel
design. Knight Wheels were used in some of the first hydroelectric plants in California
, Utah
, and Oregon
. This site is the last water-powered foundry and machine shop in the United States. A 42 inches (107 cm) Knight Wheel drives the main line shaft, with smaller water motors powering other machines.
in 1863. His Knight Wheel was the first kind of water turbine where a high-pressure nozzle
from which the water originated was aimed slightly off-center to the cups that caught the water, allowing the energy created by water's splashing not to be wasted. By the 1890s, more than 300 Knight Wheels had been produced and were in widespread use across the Western United States.
Lester Allan Pelton
's competing Pelton Wheel was developed in 1878, based on a similar concept, but using two cups side-by-side and having the nozzle pointed directly between the cups. It turned out to be more efficient, the two types having been directly compared in a competition in 1883. The Pelton Wheel went on to become the industry standard. Recognizing the superior design, Knight developed an improved electrical governor
that controlled the flow of water to the nozzle for any type of impulse water turbine.
During the California Gold Rush
, the foundry was just one of many such in the area, producing items necessary for times, such as mining
equipment and street light
s for the growing region. As the years passed and the gold was exhausted, the foundry stayed in business by creating specialized parts that could not be easily mass produced
. Additionally, Knight invented several other types of mining equipment, with the foundry having a total of eight patent
s for machines designed in his shop, one of them being after Knight's death. Knight dredger pumps were used in San Francisco Bay
, Puget Sound
, and the Willamette
and Columbia River
s.
Knight died in 1913 and left the ownership of the foundry to his employees, and it stayed in employee hands until 1970 when the last employee-owner died. At that point, it was purchased by Carl Borgh, an aerospace engineer
from Southern California who was originally a customer.
The foundry stayed in business until 1996 when Borgh retired, after which it survived for a while as a museum, but there was not enough business to offset the high insurance costs of the equipment. Borgh died in 1998 and his estate sold the company to Richard and Melissa Lyman in 2000, a couple who was in the business of preserving old buildings. Their purchase was simply to hold it until a non-profit organization founded by Andy Fahrenwald, a filmmaker who had come to create a documentary film
about the foundry, had enough funds to purchase it. However, Fahrenwald's organization could never raise enough money and finally, in 2007 the City of Sutter Creek agreed to buy it from the Lymans, although they are still holding it for the non-profit.
s, saw
s, and plane
s, which were all powered by the Knight Wheels. The model, called a pattern
, is then placed in a casting flask, in its simplest form a topless and bottomless box split in half around its perimeter. The flask is placed on a board and a sand mixture (containing seacoal
, bentonite
clay, and pitch
) poured and rammed around the pattern. The additives harden and stabilize the sand so that the flask can be split apart and the pattern removed leaving an exact impression or mold in the sand. The pattern can be reused almost indefinitely to create more molds in additional casting flasks. A channel or gate is left in the sand so that when the flask is rejoined, the ironworkers can pour the molten iron into it through the opening. When the iron has solidified the flask is broken apart, destroying the sand mold in the process, to reveal the rough casting.
The foundry is currently owned by the City of Sutter Creek. The city and the non-profit Knight Foundry Corporation closed escrow
on June 30, 2009, with restoration and hazardous material clean up scheduled to complete in early 2010. In addition to the historic interpretive tour and showcase, the business plan calls for an applied science exhibit and a skills preservation workshop series. The business plan also calls for the limited operation of the foundry to assist with other historic projects throughout the region in order to replace historic iron machine parts, lamp posts, ornamental architectural trim pieces and other historic iron fixtures.
The foundry is registered as California Historical Landmark
#1007 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
. It is also designated a Mechanical Engineering Historic Site by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME), and has been declared one of America's Most Endangered Places
by the Smithsonian Institution
.
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
and machine shop in Sutter Creek, California
Sutter Creek, California
Sutter Creek is a city in Amador County, California, United States. The population was 2,501 at the 2010 census, up from 2,303 at the 2000 census...
. It was established in 1873 to supply heavy equipment and repair facilities to the gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
mines
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
and timber
Timber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
industry of the Mother Lode
Gold Country
Gold Country is a region in the central and northeastern part of California, United States. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines that attracted waves of immigrants, known as the 49ers, during the 1849 California Gold Rush.-Geography:State Route 49 was built through the Gold Country,...
. Samuel N. Knight developed a high speed, cast iron impulse water turbine
Water turbine
A water turbine is a rotary engine that takes energy from moving water.Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now they are mostly used for electric power generation. They harness a clean and renewable energy...
which was a forerunner of the Pelton wheel
Pelton wheel
The Pelton wheel is an impulse turbine which is among the most efficient types of water turbines. It was invented by Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to its weight like traditional overshot water wheel...
design. Knight Wheels were used in some of the first hydroelectric plants in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, and Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. This site is the last water-powered foundry and machine shop in the United States. A 42 inches (107 cm) Knight Wheel drives the main line shaft, with smaller water motors powering other machines.
History
Samuel Knight came west to California from MaineMaine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
in 1863. His Knight Wheel was the first kind of water turbine where a high-pressure nozzle
Nozzle
A nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow as it exits an enclosed chamber or pipe via an orifice....
from which the water originated was aimed slightly off-center to the cups that caught the water, allowing the energy created by water's splashing not to be wasted. By the 1890s, more than 300 Knight Wheels had been produced and were in widespread use across the Western United States.
Lester Allan Pelton
Lester Allan Pelton
Lester Allan Pelton was an American inventor who contibuted significantly to the development of hydropower and hydroelectric power in the old West and world-wide. In the late 1870's he invented the Pelton water wheel, then the most efficient design of the impulse water turbine...
's competing Pelton Wheel was developed in 1878, based on a similar concept, but using two cups side-by-side and having the nozzle pointed directly between the cups. It turned out to be more efficient, the two types having been directly compared in a competition in 1883. The Pelton Wheel went on to become the industry standard. Recognizing the superior design, Knight developed an improved electrical governor
Governor (device)
A governor, or speed limiter, is a device used to measure and regulate the speed of a machine, such as an engine. A classic example is the centrifugal governor, also known as the Watt or fly-ball governor, which uses a rotating assembly of weights mounted on arms to determine how fast the engine...
that controlled the flow of water to the nozzle for any type of impulse water turbine.
During the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
, the foundry was just one of many such in the area, producing items necessary for times, such as mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
equipment and street light
Street light
A street light, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or walkway, which is turned on or lit at a certain time every night. Modern lamps may also have light-sensitive photocells to turn them on at dusk, off at dawn, or activate...
s for the growing region. As the years passed and the gold was exhausted, the foundry stayed in business by creating specialized parts that could not be easily mass produced
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
. Additionally, Knight invented several other types of mining equipment, with the foundry having a total of eight patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s for machines designed in his shop, one of them being after Knight's death. Knight dredger pumps were used in San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
, Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
, and the Willamette
Willamette River
The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...
and Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
s.
Aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...
from Southern California who was originally a customer.
The foundry stayed in business until 1996 when Borgh retired, after which it survived for a while as a museum, but there was not enough business to offset the high insurance costs of the equipment. Borgh died in 1998 and his estate sold the company to Richard and Melissa Lyman in 2000, a couple who was in the business of preserving old buildings. Their purchase was simply to hold it until a non-profit organization founded by Andy Fahrenwald, a filmmaker who had come to create a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about the foundry, had enough funds to purchase it. However, Fahrenwald's organization could never raise enough money and finally, in 2007 the City of Sutter Creek agreed to buy it from the Lymans, although they are still holding it for the non-profit.
Process
Wood craftsmen begin by making a model of the desired metal object from hardwood, using latheLathe
A lathe is a machine tool which rotates the workpiece on its axis to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of rotation.Lathes are used in woodturning,...
s, saw
Saw
A saw is a tool that uses a hard blade or wire with an abrasive edge to cut through softer materials. The cutting edge of a saw is either a serrated blade or an abrasive...
s, and plane
Plane (tool)
A hand plane is a tool for shaping wood. When powered by electricity, the tool may be called a planer. Planes are used to flatten, reduce the thickness of, and impart a smooth surface to a rough piece of lumber or timber. Planing is used to produce horizontal, vertical, or inclined flat surfaces on...
s, which were all powered by the Knight Wheels. The model, called a pattern
Pattern
A pattern, from the French patron, is a type of theme of recurring events or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set of objects.These elements repeat in a predictable manner...
, is then placed in a casting flask, in its simplest form a topless and bottomless box split in half around its perimeter. The flask is placed on a board and a sand mixture (containing seacoal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, bentonite
Bentonite
Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, essentially impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. There are different types of bentonite, each named after the respective dominant element, such as potassium , sodium , calcium , and aluminum . Experts debate a number of nomenclatorial...
clay, and pitch
Pitch (resin)
Pitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.Pitch was...
) poured and rammed around the pattern. The additives harden and stabilize the sand so that the flask can be split apart and the pattern removed leaving an exact impression or mold in the sand. The pattern can be reused almost indefinitely to create more molds in additional casting flasks. A channel or gate is left in the sand so that when the flask is rejoined, the ironworkers can pour the molten iron into it through the opening. When the iron has solidified the flask is broken apart, destroying the sand mold in the process, to reveal the rough casting.
Present status
Escrow
An escrow is:* an arrangement made under contractual provisions between transacting parties, whereby an independent trusted third party receives and disburses money and/or documents for the transacting parties, with the timing of such disbursement by the third party dependent on the fulfillment of...
on June 30, 2009, with restoration and hazardous material clean up scheduled to complete in early 2010. In addition to the historic interpretive tour and showcase, the business plan calls for an applied science exhibit and a skills preservation workshop series. The business plan also calls for the limited operation of the foundry to assist with other historic projects throughout the region in order to replace historic iron machine parts, lamp posts, ornamental architectural trim pieces and other historic iron fixtures.
The foundry is registered as California Historical Landmark
California Historical Landmark
California Historical Landmarks are buildings, structures, sites, or places in the state of California that have been determined to have statewide historical significance by meeting at least one of the criteria listed below:...
#1007 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. It is also designated a Mechanical Engineering Historic Site by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is a professional body, specifically an engineering society, focused on mechanical engineering....
(ASME), and has been declared one of America's Most Endangered Places
America's Most Endangered Places
Each year since 1987, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has released a list of places they consider the most endangered in America. The number of sites included on the list has varied, with the most recent lists settling on 11...
by the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.