[urbanspaceman]

Hi Jim. You cannot imagine how many chroniclers have got it wrong over the centuries - most just regurgitated what had been written previously. Aylward is one perfect example: this man claimed Shotley Bridge never made any hollow blades because there were no such blades with the Shotley Bridge name on them. The fact that there were no names on any hollow blades until Klingenthal began seems to have eluded him; I will allow the very rare exception as nothing is impossible.
I have spent over eight years wading through a catalogue of errors and misconceptions, trying to get to the facts and establish the true story. Even now I am still doubling back, and down, putting any vague doubts I may have to the test and ensure what I am claiming (because I am making some revelationary claims that are sometimes contentious, to say the least) stand up, at least to my scrutiny, and I am not easily satisfied.
The Mohll family were from a village called Oak (sic) in Lennep, which was eventually absorbed by Remscheid, and were paper mill owners. Abraham and Harmonn have been listed as Grinders - yet were not in any guild, this was totally contrary to the whole Solingen guild exclusivity which was responsible (along with local ores) for the permanent high quality output over the centuries. Their father had invested in a revolutionary machine, invented by the Huguenots, but was unable to exploit its potential because of the Luddite attitude of Solingen.
This was understandable, because their system of separate and exclusive guilds for each process was responsible for the high quality of their output (along with the quality of their ores) and 30,000 Huguenots had flooded into the area, fleeing from the French kings' relentless persecution. This was ironic, because back then, despite centuries of mistaken assumptions, the Wupper Valley was not part of Prussia, but part of the Holy Roman Empire… and Catholic (and still is a Catholic city). Such an enormous labour force - both skilled and semi-skilled - seriously threatened the livelihood of much of the area's workers… so please, no machines!
Anyway… unable to exploit its potential to reduce labour time in fashioning a hollow blade, the Mohlls had been trying to get it established in Britain for a long time, as frequent requests for exclusive patents over here can attest. One of the other things the Huguenots exploited was what we now call 'tool steel' (invented in Nuremberg in 1601) that - as well as allowing the design of the spectacular 'slitting mill' for producing nail rods - allowed them to profile those ultra-hard dry-grind wheels which also came over with the Mohlls.
It is my opinion that the Mohlls were never actually trained grinders (Schleifen)… just mill owners, both wealthy and independent from the start; certainly never under contract to the syndicate at any point.
The Ohligs were forgers (Schmielden) and had been since the 1400s, but that Mohll rolling machine was in his forge at SB – had to be (this may well be what you have seen Jim); and as Peter is frequently at pains to attest: "the works buildings were effectively inaccessible from the village" so no chance anyone ever got into his forge, and consequently never got to see the rolling machine until eventually, in the last quarter of the 1700s, Mole and Oley descendants took themselves, and it, down to Birmingham- but that is another story I'm qualifying as we speak.