January 19, 2003

Perpetual Motion

General Sherman would have loved Uncle Smack’s perpetual motion machine. It was one more blow for the Union -- 65 years after the War of Northern Aggression a.k.a. the Civil War.

Uncle Smack was one of the last old-time blacksmiths in the “Boot Heel” of southeast Missouri. He could make any thing you drew a picture of – and most anything else you could halfway describe.

His moniker was shortened from “Smackwater.” It was a nickname acquired in his youth for exuberant dives into a big drainage ditch congruously called “The Swimming Hole.”

Blacksmiths in Uncle Smack’s day were highly respected. Contrary to folklore, shoeing horses was a sideline for blacksmiths. Their principal service to mankind was making and repairing plows, colters, mattocks, axes, tongs, cowbells, wagons and all other working paraphernalia required of civilization at that time and place.

Folks often hired the friendly neighborhood blacksmith to pull an aching tooth with one of his many pliers. Generally this service was on the house.

Uncle Smack was a highly rated smithy because he knew “temper.”

He proclaimed, “Iron has personality. You got to fit the right iron to particular use. Then you got to give it the right hardness in the right places.”

He once showed me how to temper iron – a closely guarded secret of blacksmiths since the biblical Tu’bal-cain .

I had pumped his forge bellows until my arms ached while he crafted a peavey (curved hook with which to roll logs). My reward was a “lucky ring” made from a horseshoe nail.

“Iron to be worked by hand, or wrought, has to be heated cherry red,” confided Uncle Smack. “Cold iron will crack, in addition to wearing out your arm. A forge fire that is too hot burns out the carbon and makes iron brittle. White-hot iron will splash when you hammer it.

“Quenching hot iron puts in temper. Most times you can quench in the tub of slack water -- but not by dunking. Only horseshoes needing wear resistance more than strength can be plunged in.

“Sharp tools such as knives, froes, saws and chisels must be edge-quenched briefly, then let stand to cool slowly in oil or dying embers of the forge.

“Striking tools -- such as anvils and hammers – are tempered only on the striking surface. They are best cooled slowly with powdered nests of mud-dauber hornets.

“As temper takes hold, iron shows a color which you must watch carefully. It starts as a thin blue line that moves away from the quench. As the temper takes, the blue turns straw color. The trick is to stop the quench at the right place. Watch for the blue, then the straw.”

Uncle Smack’s work philosophy has stood me well over the years: “Never hit an anvil unless you have work on it. You might chip it. Anyway, you can’t make money hammering on a naked anvil.”

Smack’s Inspiration

Uncle Smack was successful because he invented tools to solve problems. His biggest customer was a logging company supplying railroads with cross-ties. He crafted most of the special peaveys, header grabs, skids and hooks required for logging in the Boot Heel swamps.

A lucrative business was windmills. He knew just the right angle for vanes in the light air of flatland Missouri.

Perhaps his conception of a perpetual-motion machine arose from this knowledge. Certainly his contraption resembled a giant windmill wheel.

It took Uncle Smack a year or so in spare time to build his machine. Essentially it was an eight-foot wheel with spokes of large-diameter pipes.

When it came time to turn on the machine, Uncle smack borrowed some cannon balls stacked under a Civil War gun at the township hall. The ancient artillery piece supposedly was captured from Yankees at the Battle of Shiloh.

Uncle Smack’s idea was to encase a ball in each wheel spoke. Once the wheel was given a few, good turns, the weight of the balls rolling to the outer edge of the wheel on the down turn, and to the inner axel on the upturn, would keep the machine going forever.

Though folks called his invention a perpetual motion machine, he was aware that friction precluded indefinite operation. His aim was to turn the wheel with a one-horsepower kerosene engine to overcome friction and thereafter extract two horsepower of energy.

Hopefully gravity and rolling balls would produce a power bonus – and a fortune for him.

Wonderful Effects

On the big day of launch, Uncle Smack started his little one-lung engine, threw in the drive belt and crossed his fingers.

The drive belt smoked and the big wheel creaked as it slowly gained momentum. The cannon balls banged wonderfully as they sloshed in their pipes.

Very soon, the balls were thrashing around with alarming ferocity. Uncle Smack threw off the drive belt. Nevertheless, the swaying wheel continued to whirl. Maybe he had, indeed, loosed a monster!

Suddenly the cannon balls broke out in rapid succession. Three made a shambles of Uncle Smack’s shop. Four others sprayed Main Street – a dirt street of a half-dozen modest buildings.

The first casualty was Bill’s Diner. A ball crashed against a wall and knocked down a shelf of dishes.

Ball number two rolled toward the general store where a customer, seeing it coming, opened the front door to prevent it being demolished. Instead, the ball careened inside, taking out a potbelly stove.

The third ball went through a plate-glass window of the post office.

The last ball headed out of town. As it streaked along the ground, Joe Striker instinctively put out his foot to stop it. Result: one broken ankle.

“Judas priest!” stormed postmaster Curdie. “Smack, did more damage with those damn cannon balls than Sherman would have.”

Uncle Smack gathered the errant cannon balls and stacked then back neatly where they belonged.

Repairs and medical expenses cost him $180 – a big sum for those days. Then he converted his magnificent perpetual-motion machine into windmills and hog bells.

“Shoulda known there was going to be trouble,” grumped Uncle Smack. “You can’t get rich hammering a naked anvil.”

Somewhere in that smithy philosophy there is a lesson more valuable than a lucky horse-shoe-nail ring.

Author: Lindsey Williams