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Greetings
During the restoration of historic riveted truss bridges for the Calhoun County Historic Bridge Park in 1997, I believed that in any library one could find historic records and photographs on any phase of the fabrication of historic nineteenth or early twentieth century bridges. But it didn’t make any difference if the bridge was 90ft or 1000ft, the shop photographic and written documentation was sparse or nonexistent. It is especially true for the industrial riveting process, in particular shop riveting.
Many of the bridge books I have in my library start their written documentation at the time the bridge was erected, and a good portion of this documentation for suspension bridges involves spinning the cable from tower to tower. So much attention focused on spinning cable gives the impression the bridge is one big cable, with no acknowledgment that the cable is held up by shop riveted and field riveted towers.
Who were these shop craftsmen who fabricated in iron and steel, and where are the words of their shop experience?
Vern Mesler
August 2025
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Fabrication Shop Sights & Sounds, circa 1960s
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Shop dirt clings to the bottom of my pants, spreads over my shoes, dry, dusty, brown. Cold, I hate cold, an old coat helps with the cold shop. I am laying out lines on the surface of two large steel plates, lines drawn with a sharpened soapstone for a large half circle fixture for the fabrication of steel structural members. Shop industrial blueprints, blue, stiff, crackly, white lines, handwritten numbers and letters, a flat 2D view. As a shop Fitter, I am required to accurately interpret these lines, views, and calculate dimensions. First, I work with another shop employee to fabricate a fixture; the welder will tack-weld steel angle and plate as I set them to the appropriate lines. Then we collect the steel from the Layout Department: angle, plate, channel, beams. The material is already cut, punched, and beveled; the steel-detail is ready to clamp, tack-weld, and hammer to the fixture. A three-pound double-face engineer's hammer, shaped from straight-grained hickory and slenderized near the head for spring, is my hammer of choice. With a crane, chain, and whatever tools are available, those blueprint lines, views, and dimensions become a fabricated steel member to be shipped to the erection site, and it must fit.
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It was hard work handling steel as a steel fabricator. After an eight- or nine-hour shift, I would immediately drive home, not stopping for anything, to shower off the dry, dusty, brown dirt, and at 5:00am the next morning leave for another shift. Working as a shop Fitter was the most rewarding of my years in steel fabrication. While the later positions I held provided more benefits and security, there was a quiet rhythmic feel in handling steel, even with the ever-present shop sounds in the background.
| | Rivers of Steel Field Rivet Training | | |
It began with an email on June 14 from Adam Taylor, Facilities Operations Director & Construction Project Manager, Rivers of Steel, Pittsburgh, “Would you be interested in helping Rivers of Steel make some large columns for the historic restoration of the Carrie blast furnace? We would greatly appreciate your experience and guidance on this project.” This did pique my interest, although I often get requests that lead to little or no further communication. That was not the case with Adam Taylor. There was a quick succession of emails, and soon my wife and I had our 2011 GMC Canyon pickup loaded with rivet hammers, a rivet training fixture, and a hefty supply of steel rivets, ready to travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for field rivet training at Rivers of Steel. Taylor and his crew were enthusiastic students, and on the second day of training they were driving rivets with the skill of an experienced field riveting crew.
Important in helping develop their skill with the field rivet hammer was having the opportunity to inspect their driven rivets. Our Lansing Community College rivet training fixture (which can be disassembled to remove driven rivets and reassembled for more practicing) made this possible.
More at: Historic Bridge Restoration, Rivers of Steel Field Rivet Training
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After a day of field riveting training at the Rivers of Steel Carrie Blast Furnace site, Facilities Operations Director Adam Taylor invited us on a private tour of the historic Carrie Hot Metal Bridge (currently closed to the public, with plans to become a future pedestrian bridge). The bridge had been used to transport molten metal from the Carrie Blast Furnace across the river to production facilities on the other side.
Hot Metal Bridges as described in the book, The Bridges of Pittsburgh, by Joseph White and M. W. von Bernewitz, 1928: Pittsburgh has three unique bridges – that is, their purpose is unique – spanning the Monongahela River: these are the three so-called and rightly so “hot-metal bridges” of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation (one) and of the Union Railroad Company (United States Steel Corporation) (two).
More at: Historic Bridge Restoration, Tons of Molten Iron
| | Dunlap’s Creek 1839 Cast Iron Bridge | | Exploring Historic Bridges in Scotland | | Historic Bridge Presentations in Grand Rapids & Marshall | | |
Grand Rapids, Michigan
September 11, 2025, 7:00-8:00 pm
Ryerson Auditorium, Grand Rapids Public Library 111 Library N.E.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
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Marshall, Michigan
September 22, 2025, 6:30-7:30 pm
Marshall District Library
124 W. Green Street
Marshall, Michigan
| | Books abound from both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that document the engineering perspective on riveted bridges and the development of their designs. During this same period, advances in wrought iron and steel making processes, metal fabrication methods, and machinery were also made, but these accomplishments are less evident in the written record. A historic riveted metal truss bridge is a craftsman’s record. If one reads it carefully, much can be learned from the bridge itself about the manufacturing processes used in its construction. These presentations by Vern Mesler explore this record with a focus on local bridges. | | Calhoun County Historic Bridge Park | | | | Click on the image to view a video about the Calhoun County Historic Bridge Park, produced by Central Michigan University for Destination Michigan, a program aired through PBS. | | |
Iron & Steel Preservation Program Fund
Lansing Community College Foundation
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Please consider contributing to the Iron and Steel Preservation Program Fund. This fund was established to support projects, research, conferences and scholarships related to the repair, rehabilitation, and restoration of metals. The Lansing Community College Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. Use the link below, and select "Iron and Steel Preservation Program Fund" from the drop-down menu in the online form. Thank you for your support!
Iron and Steel Preservation Program Fund
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