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fiver
Well-Known Member
how is Katie?
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
New stuff! Here is what my three old SAECO's use to hold the die in place.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Here is a bottom shot. No room for a nut there.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Must be from that period, as it is post Carl Cramer manufacture, but it doesn't have a SAECO tag on it either, totally unmarked.
L Ross
Well-Known Member
You will be pleased to learn of the progress of the Fox. In 1972 the Clean Water Act. passed. Proof that occasionally government can do something right. In 1973 when I moved to Green Bay to go to college the Fox River was almost dead. I walked across the Main St. bridge and saw orange donuts rippling the surface of the water. They were the lips of carp trying to breath air because there was zero dissolved oxygen in the river.
Today the fishery is unbelievable. Muskies up to 50 lbs. Not 50", 50 pounds! 16 pound walleyes, smallmouth bass, white bass, sturgeon, ginormous catfish. There are still problems with contaminated sediment although there has been a multi billion dollar dredging and capping operation. Some people are uncomfortable eating fish from the river and lower Bay, others seem to be unconcerned. The paper mill sulfite flavor is gone now. There was a PCB contamination problem from a process of recycling and manufacturing carbonless copy paper from the 50's until the Clean Water Act. was passed. the process of dredging, capping, and isolating the PCBs is ongoing.
That's interesting. I didn't know the river went as far north as Green Bay. I grew up 40 miles south of the Wisconsin state line. Nice to hear there are actually fish in it today. Wasn't anything in it you could actually eat back then, even the meat of the cat fish was stained green from the chemicals. Only thing that seemed healthy were the snapping turtles but they are air breathers so . . .
L Ross
Well-Known Member
Well, there are two Fox Rivers. One starts up in some marshes up north of Portage WI, wanders into Lake Winnebago, comes out of Winnebago running North and debouches into the Bay of Green Bay. The other Fox River starts in SE WI and runs a couple hundred miles into Illinois.
The Fox River that runs into Green Bay was an important water route during first European exploration, the fur trade, and early water born transportation. There is a short portage at, of all places, Portage. In early times this portage was controlled by the natives of the area. Prior to rail road expansion, a short canal was constructed to connect the Fox River to the Wisconsin River which runs into the Mississippi River at Prairie Du Chien, and thence to the Gulf of Mexico to the South or the source of the Mississippi upstream to the area of Grand Rapids, MN.
Too have seen the Fox River when it was first seen and documented by early explorers would have been marvelous, and a regret I will alway have that I could not see the series of rapids the Fox descends as it flows over the Niagara escarpment. Yes, the same Niagara escarpment as the famous Niagara Falls. This escarpment extends from somewhere in Illinois across Wisconsin, occasionally exposed by glaciation, gouged out by glaciers after Door County WI and lies under Lake Michigan, only to be exposed again at the Falls. How far it extends after the Falls I don't know.
Geology was one of the things I paid attention to in college.
@RicinYakima i picked up an old Cramer awhile back and it was blue instead of black. It also has the screw in the top where your picture shows. That must have been the original design made by Cramer until SAECO came to the table with the newer style, after that purchase, that is the more modern Redding style we see today. I havent used the old Cramer yet. Was considering a overhaul and a nice new fresh coat of paint befor I put it all back together.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
My friends at the Antique Reloading Tool Collectors Association tell me that it probably made/assembled post 1945, but before SAECO bought Cramer's business. Cramer was in his 60's when be began making reloading tools in the mid 1930's. Post WW2, black paint was very hard to find, so other colors were chosen. Pacific C presses can be found in about 5 colors postwar. Cramer retired very comfortably as his shop was a sub-sub-contractor for the aircraft industry in SoCal.