SOME THOUGHTS ON...

AMERICAN PRECISION

Last month I had the opportunity to visit perhaps the most interesting museum I’ve ever seen. This precious jewel is called the American Precision Museum and is located way in the back woods in Windsor Vermont. It is a bit out of the way but well worth the trip. The scenery you will see getting there is gorgeous as well.

The museum is in the old Robbins & Lawrence armory. built in 1846. It sits on the bank of a small river by a waterfall that supplied power to the factory. The river is free flowing now but the remnants of the old dam can still be seen. Today miniaturized motors run not only machines but sub-components of machines. It is hard to conceive of a single motor (mill wheel or later a steam engine) powering an entire three story factory via line shafts with pulleys and belts to each of hundreds of machines. All those belts flying around would have been an OSHA nightmare.

One section of the museum has a small shop with 6-8 machines running from belts. An electric motor replaces the mill wheel but the visitor can still get an idea of what it used to be like.

In the first half of the 19^th century, there were not many companies building production machinery, especially the types of machines used in an armory such as lathes, mills, planers and borers. Robbins & Lawrence designed and built their own machinery and soon found there was a business in building them for others. In doing so, they became the one of the earliest companies to mass produce machine tools. At their peak they employed several hundred people in the plant.

The museum shows the history of the company and also the history of the industry in general. They have 50-60 machine tools of all sorts on the floor. These range in age from a large (@12' long X 24" swing) lathe built in 1831 to a Bridgeport knee mill built in 1936 and virtually identical to what would be found in a modern tool room.

They had several turret lathes that I found interesting. These machines had slotted barrels onto which cams were bolted. As the barrel rotated, the cams would cause the lathe to perform various operations. This was a real breakthrough in that it multiplied the utility of skilled labor for repetitive operations. Setting up the machine was a chore and required a great deal of skill. Once the machine was set up, all the skill was in the machine and very little was required of the operator. The operator merely placed stock in the chuck and removed finished parts.

Perhaps the thing that fascinated me most was the design of the machines. There were two aspects of this:

First, I was struck by how modern they appeared. Many of the machines would not look out of place in the shop of today. I suspect that a hibernated machinist from 1850 could be awakened and, once he understood what had happened to the drive belts, could quickly be doing useful work on a modern lathe. I am not sure what I expected but I certainly thought the machinery would be more primitive in appearance.

The second thing that caught me was how elegant many of the machines appeared. We are accustomed to machine tools being painted grey. Their design, while functional, might be called boring. XXXXXXXXXXX In his history of machine tool designers (see the tip of the month) felt that this was an innovation and something to be praised. I think I prefer the old machines. Machine support legs would be curved rather than straight. Where triangular bracing mich be used today, the old machines would have cast webbings with intricate designs. One machine even had a robin and its nest cast into the webbing. Machines were more colorful with pinstriping and colored details. Yes, I understand why machines are not made this way today. Still, I think something has been lost. Form follows function but there is no reason the form can’t be beautiful as well.

Robbins & Lawrence machines were used to make many of the consumer products of the age. This included sewing machines, clocks, typewriters, lamps and more. The museum is liberally sprinkled with exhibits of these products.

The piece-de-resistance is probably the model machine shop. This was built by Pratt & Whitney toolmaker John Aschauer in his spare time over about 30 years. There are about 20 1/10th scale machines in the exhibit. Each one is finely crafted with obvious love. A press of a button sets them all in motion. Here is a great closeup showing the level of detail:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/dolly/portland2001/1/apm.jpg

The museum has a website at www.americanprecision.org You can find lots of pictures and other information there. If you are ever within 100 or so miles, it is well worth the trip. If you like history and tools, it is worth the trip no matter how far away you are.

American Heritage Magazine profiled the museum and its founder in 1991 at
  http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1991/3/1991_3_42.shtml

TIP OF THE MONTH...

TOOL BUILDERS

What museum would be complete without a small museum shop? This one is no exception. While poking around I found a book titled “English and American Tool Builders”, written by Joseph Wickham Roe in 1916. Roe was a professor of machine design at Yale University. I am a sucker for history of all kinds so bought a copy.

The book discusses the major English and British machine tool inventors and builders. Some names will be familiar, Watt, Brunel, Whitney, Brown & Sharpe, Pratt & Whitney and many more. It gives very brief bios of the men and then goes on to tell the histories of their companies and innovations.

An interesting feature of the book is genealogies of inventors and companies. For example, in the genealogy of the Naugatuck Valley brass industry, Roe shows that it began with Grilley which begat Abel Porter & Co, which begat Leavenworth, Hayden & Scovill and so on. I had not seen this done for companies before and it is certainly an interesting approach.

An excellent book and well worth a read. It is republished by Lindsay Publications which is on the web at www.lindsaybks.com Visit their site and order their paper catalog. I just got mine the other day and have not yet had time to digest it. It is 50-60 pages long and includes books and plans on a variety of topics. Some are reprints, like this one. Others are more current. It has books on machine tool operation, building your own drill press, lathe, mill and so on. If you want to learn how to make brass castings, they have the books. They also sell model building kits that allow you to build a working steam engine.

Even if you are not interested in this kind of thing, visit the website anyway. I found it very well written and funny.


Best,

John R Henry CPP