The Bow Socket
The Bow Socket The blast furnace burned at 2,000 degrees as I watched a steel bar burn hot. The bar glowed red as a strong man lifted it from the furnace and placed it in a forging hammer. The ground shook as a massive drop hammer slammed to the ground mashing the red hot metal into the die. The bar was lifted and carried again to a trimming press where another earth shattering sound trimmed the part into shape. The worker placed the bar back in the furnace reaching for another bar and moving again to the forging hammer to repeat the steps of the forging process. It was the winter of 1977 when I watched this process. The heat of the furnace was making my face red. The outside temperature was zero degrees. My face was warm, but my feet were cold as I watched these men work in a factory built before Teddy Roosevelt was president. It was not the first time that I learned about the horrific conditions in which my father worke...