I've been meaning to start a thread for this place for months now, and another member recently stopped by here a couple days ago. This, coupled with my current insomnia, has inspired me to complete that which I meant to do long ago... upload a few photos of the Arkansas scissor factory and share with them y'all. I can honestly say, this is the first metalworks/scissor/blade factory that I have ever explored, and it was
way more interesting than I expected it to be. Not to mention, I now know so much more about how scissors are made!
I have spent some time looking for any history on the place and have come up empty-handed. All I could find was one paragraph of archived newspaper indicating some guy was trying to steal equipment and got busted while trying to remove it from the property. I never even figured out why they went out of business, but I suspect that it had something to do with the loss of a big government contract. Then there was some sort of buy-out that took place before they ceased operations. There is no indication that any of the employees or even senior employees knew anything about their impending demise. This seems to be a repeating pattern with abandonments, almost to the point of sounding trite, but...
it's like they just decided to walk away and leave it all behind one day. The date was probably in December of 2012, judging from the newspaper that was still sitting on the CEO's desk (who, BTW, I suspect was a woman - probably the only senior level female from what I could tell). Anyways, that's all theoretical, I found nothing regarding its history, unfortunately. But, one of the best parts of exploring these places, IMO, is the investigating and slowly unveiling the rich histories and stories hidden away just waiting for us to find.
Most of us have that one place that is "ours," and it's special like that. This is my place. I think I've been here a couple times now, and I don't even live in Arkansas.
Hope you guys enjoy the pics! CC is welcomed, of course.
The finished product.
It looks like this company completed every stage of the process, from shaping the metal in an enormous kiln-type thing, all the way to the final polish and buff. I have to say, they made a great pair of scissors!
There were several dozen, maybe even a hundred or more, of fans of all types. This place must have reached incredibly high temperatures in the warehouse areas during their working hours, especially in the oppressively hot and humid Arkansas summertime.
If any of you guys know anything about these machines or what's going on in all of these photos, please do share!
I was even lucky enough to get a night with a new moon so I could take some decent star shots at the back of the facility. I'm not sure what these huge vats did, but I'm assuming it had something to do with waste and toxins. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I guess it's the lower resolution, but it seems like my photos look so much crappier once I get them uploaded. Sorry about the excessive grit, it wasn't there before!