The Adventures of Steam Punk

“Wow”, I uttered slack jawed, standing in the pouring rain, gazing in through a hay loft door at the mechanical monster.

“Yup. Pretty steam punk”, the owner said matter of fact. “It’s been here since they built the farm”.

Nearby nestled in the trees was a quintessential Victorian Era brick farmhouse and we were standing outside on the earthen ramp, gazing into a typical Wisconsin dairy barn hayloft. It had been at probably at least a half century or more since agricultural activities onsite had ceased, as the pastures and croplands and hayfields were since replaced by the now mature forest, giving clue to just how long ago “since they built the farm” was.

It would have been common for the pioneer farmer to purchase precious pieces of equipment essential to the construction of the dwelling and the expansive dairy barn, such as a drum mixer. Concrete could be mixed to pour floors in the barn and for construction of the dwelling, as well as to mix the mortar necessary to lay the over one hundred cords of field stone in the dairy barn walls, plus the mortar for the stone home foundation and brick veneer. Terrazzo poured from the mixer would give the farmhouse floors timeless elegance. Indeed, the inside of the poorly cleaned mixer drum was encrusted, and the paddles looked like broken arms immobilized by plaster casts of Terrazzo, left to harden over a century or more ago.

I was preparing to build my sauna, The Sauna on the Rock, and getting a ready-mix truck into the undeveloped location perched upon a bluff to pour a monolithic foundation and slab was out of the question. Concrete would have to mixed onsite.

The easy thing to do, indeed the smart thing to do, would have been to simply buy a new mixer. I was travelling through south central Wisconsin and drove past at least a half dozen of the big box home improvement stores native to Wisconsin. Any one of those would no doubt have a half an aisle full of shiny flimsy brand-new Chinese made mixers at a ridiculously low price, with an 11% rebate in the form of an in-store credit to boot.

But I didn’t want a Chinese mixer, happened to be passing through the heart of America’s Dairyland, have a certain fascination with online marketplaces, and a certain obsession with old junk.

We stepped out of the rain and into the hayloft.

The base of the mixer drum was heavy cast steel and skirted by an angry and hungry looking exposed ring gear. The drum itself was rolled plate steel joined with acorn size hand hammered and bucked rivets. The tiny pinion gear was mounted on a shaft opposite a freakishly large belt pulley. The original power source had long since disappeared, having been replaced by an electric blower motor pirated from a discarded forced air furnace and its weight held the belt in tension. There were no guards or safety devices, not even a shutoff switch. This machine was built in era when the only protection the operator had was their own wits.

“How much?”, I asked.

“Sixty bucks”.

“Does it work?”

“Dunno. Cord is bad but we can try”.

We were both soaking wet, water dripped in through the barn roof here and there, and the planking on the hayloft floor was well saturated. Messing with electricity and a bad cord did not seem like the most prudent thing to do. Sixty dollars was fished out of my wallet and handed over without further discussion.

I had just purchased a sixty-dollar lottery ticket that did not come with an 11% rebate in the form of an in-store credit. The mixer was loaded up and hauled north.

A cast-off power cord in only slightly better condition was dug out of a scrap pile then installed. The old furnace blower motor eagerly spun to life and promptly shredded the old drive belt, which had been weathered to the white wispy appearance and tensile integrity of the burial veil of the crypt keeper. A new belt was purchased for seven dollars, effectively transforming the mixer into a $67.00 lottery ticket. But once the new belt was installed and the slightly better cord plugged in, the beast clattered and clanked, and the drum spun to life. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Pour day for the Sauna on the Rock was ridiculously hot. My then 76-year-old dad showed up early, eager to help. He shoveled aggregate and sand and Portland cement and fed water into the drum all day long. The generator hummed as the mixer clattered and clanked and dutifully dumped out wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of perfectly mixed concrete. By the day’s end the pour was completed, and I was overheated and wore out and exhausted. But both my dad and the mixer were daisy fresh and looked like they could have continued on for hours. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

During the flawless performance pouring the sauna foundation, the antiquated and rusting and inanimate hulk took on a certain amusing and animated and quirky persona. I nicknamed the old mixer Steam Punk.

Steam Punk served well, subsequently pouring a privy slab, mixing mortar for field stone and cement block and grout, as well as mixing some mortar for my brother’s stone masonry. Once the projects were all done, Steam Punk was ignominiously tucked away out of site in the woods, but was never quite forgotten.

“Do you know where I could borrow a mixer?” asked civic minded Steve. He had volunteered to mix and pour some concrete for a project at the local humane society. “No, but I know where there is a mixer you can have”, I replied.

“It’s quite steam punk”, I quipped as we wrestled Steam Punk onto his trailer. “Heavy, too”, Steve grunted.

Steam Punk performed flawlessly at the humane society. When Steve asked when he could return the mixer, I replied he should gift Steam Punk to the next benevolent project.

The next benevolent project materialized soon enough when civic minded Neil needed a mixer to pour some concrete to remedy a safety issue at the egress of a 4-H Exhibition Building. Again, Steam Punk dutifully cranked out batch after batch of perfectly mixed concrete, which was poured by civic minded Neil and his civic minded dad. They just don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Just as each of us humans have a certain weakness or fatal flaw that may hinder our abilities or worse yet, kill us, so it is with Steam Punk as well. Despite his hefty cast steel construction and rolled plate steel drum and hand hammered and bucked rivets, what will ultimately disable or perhaps even destroy Steam Punk is the lost art of the babbitt bearing.

In this day and age, the bearing of a rotating shaft is borne by ball or tapered roller bearings, or perhaps by an insert bearing. Steam Punk, however, is from a different era when molten babbitt material was carefully poured and then the pinion shaft was masterfully fitted by a skilled craftsman. The minds containing that archaic technology and those hands possessing the necessary artisanship have long since gone cold. The well-worn babbitt bearing that carries Steam Punk’s wobbly pinion shaft will first occasionally skip a tooth, then one fateful day while under load will repeatedly skip then strip the teeth completely off either ring or pinion gear, effectively killing the old mixer.

And while Steam Punk may simply be an inanimate conglomeration of cast steel and plate steel and hand hammered and bucked rivets, the course of his working life has taken a very human trajectory.

In his younger days he played an active role in creating a homestead and iconic red barn for a fledgling agricultural enterprise that defined a young pioneering state in its rise to becoming America’s Dairyland. In his middle years Steam Punk was marginalized and destined for the scrap heap. Later in life, he reproved his trailblazing worth by being an indispensable part of carving out a new homestead in the Northwoods. In his twilight years, he is making the world a better place one pour at a time by mixing concrete for civic minded volunteer projects.

Long live Steam Punk.