Brown & Sharpe screw machine

Here's an excellent video of a screw machine in operation, by the always reliable Mr Pete: Screw Machine

Began my tooling career in the mid 60's making form tools.
Sure brings back memories from pre-NC days.

The millions of screw machines built in the USA helped us win WW2. I have heard our government has hundreds of them moth-balled and in endless caves in Kansas, just in case we need them again someday.

Richard King said:

The millions of screw machines built in the USA helped us win WW2. I have heard our government has hundreds of them moth-balled and in endless caves in Kansas, just in case we need them again someday.

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If our Government ever pulled them out of moth ball to run, there would be no one around who could run one! Oh, I forgot, they have the operations manual......

Its amazing how those B & S screw machines hold up over the years. the one in the video is a flat belt drive machine probably made in the 1900's. Modified with the old Driv-All tranny, and continued up to today making parts. I guess with the flood coolant oil that they were set up to use, that was the lubricant the little machine got! To keep it from wearing out.

I've have been around a 00 like the one in the picture set up spitting out little screws that had a screw driver slot cut in them, all done on one single machine. Didn't go to a mill to get the screwdriver slot put in.

It's amazing the collection of cams they had hanging on the walls, definitely took a lifetime to collect them all. And to know which cam to pull for an operation, I couldn't even begin to think where to start. I recall, dad had some books that described some of this stuff and how to make cams. It's a totally different learning process of that running a lathe or even a turret lathe!

Saw that video last night and was going to start a thread myself.
I don't normaly watch tubalcain videos anymore, but that one was exceptional.

I hope the machines and tooling find a home and doesn't just get scrapped.

The beauty of the Screw Machine, is that it doesn't require a highly skilled Operator.

One competent "Set-Up Man" can keep a half-dozen or more "Operators" up and running parts.

On "high volume" work, one Operator should be able to tend 3 or 4 single spindle machines, ... or 2 or 3 multi-spindle machines, at a time.


Automatic Screw Machines are still very EFFICIENT at producing high volume parts, ... but the exorbitant cost of Tooling, and lengthy Set-Up times, has put them at a severe disadvantage, on today's lower volume work.

The CNC lathe's ability to execute complex tool paths, while using inexpensive, "off-the-shelf" tooling, ... and Semi-Skilled Operators, ... is the reason they've replaced Automatic Screw Machines in what little bit of Manufacturing that's left in this Country.

And is a major contributing factor, ... in the ability of "3rd World" Countries to take over that type of Manufacturing.



.

4GSR said:

Its amazing how those B & S screw machines hold up over the years. the one in the video is a flat belt drive machine probably made in the 1900's. Modified with the old Driv-All tranny, and continued up to today making parts. I guess with the flood coolant oil that they were set up to use, that was the lubricant the little machine got! To keep it from wearing out.

I've have been around a 00 like the one in the picture set up spitting out little screws that had a screw driver slot cut in them, all done on one single machine. Didn't go to a mill to get the screwdriver slot put in.

It's amazing the collection of cams they had hanging on the walls, definitely took a lifetime to collect them all. And to know which cam to pull for an operation, I couldn't even begin to think where to start. I recall, dad had some books that described some of this stuff and how to make cams. It's a totally different learning process of that running a lathe or even a turret lathe!

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When I was in high school I had a few hours a day job in a shop that made parts for aircraft instruments, partly owned by a particularly fussy no-bullshit type of guy of German DNA.
They had 2 machines like that, except I was the guy that got to slot the screw heads, one at a time on a Millrite mill with a collet holder mounted on a slide with a lever to move the slide, and a slitting saw in the spindle.

And since I was just a dumbass kid.

They'd give me a half a shoe box full of tiny screws to slot...........
And just as I was getting down to the last few dozen in the box..............
They'd bring another box.

That job kinda killed my desire to work in a shop when I got into the real world.

I did like the guy that set up the screw machines though.

I did a 3 man class down in San Antonio TX last winter at a company called Cox Mfg. and they has at least a hundred Swiss made automatics. Many were conventional cam operated ones and they had been using them for years, chugging away 24 hours a day. The foreman told me he has a hard time training men to run them, as most coming out of tech school only want to run CNC, so its almost a losing battle having them. I recall a trip to John Deere in Waterloo and they had a plant that had to be 2 blocks long and a block wide with rows and rows on all types of brands; Brown and Sharp, New Britian, Conomatic, Acme Gridley and a few Davenports. I wish I could find a picture of it, it would be something worth saving. I would guess most of the auto shops in the USA were scrapped. I hope someone will save the B&S shop. Like you said those cams are vintage and one of kind now I bet. A rotten shame if they get melted down in a furnace in China. This is why I love teaching you guys (politically correct, Gals too) how to hand scrape. I pass on a skill and hope and pray you will continue on to pass on what I have taught you. Rich

Cox Manufacturing? I've been by that place a thousand times and never knew it existed!

Have to give them a call. Thanks for the lead...

Pic #2 of Cox looks like that cam swiss has got a drum magazine feeder.

Would that be the same Cox that makes model IC engines ?

Billyum said:

Would that be the same Cox that makes model IC engines ?

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Nope! Totally different family involved here.

Smoothbore said:

The beauty of the Screw Machine, is that it doesn't require a highly skilled Operator.

One competent "Set-Up Man" can keep a half-dozen or more "Operators" up and running parts.

On "high volume" work, one Operator should be able to tend 3 or 4 single spindle machines, ... or 2 or 3 multi-spindle machines, at a time.


Automatic Screw Machines are still very EFFICIENT at producing high volume parts, ... but the exorbitant cost of Tooling, and lengthy Set-Up times, has put them at a severe disadvantage, on today's lower volume work.

The CNC lathe's ability to execute complex tool paths, while using inexpensive, "off-the-shelf" tooling, ... and Semi-Skilled Operators, ... is the reason they've replaced Automatic Screw Machines in what little bit of Manufacturing that's left in this Country.

And is a major contributing factor, ... in the ability of "3rd World" Countries to take over that type of Manufacturing.



.

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yeah that's what I'm doing now. Finally landed a "metal industry" job. Screw machines R US!

My orders run 3600-4000 pieces each. Making #40030227's for the entire next week.

Three of us run twin machine, manual-feed setups (we load/unload each piece-twice), one guy runs a single machine that takes larger stock he cuts as he goes. The owner and manager (father/son) keep some number of the other 10 automatic feed machines humming all day long.

About 19 screw machines nearly all B&S, the turret feeds on the big ones look like mini-cannons.

5 weeks there and I'm ready to start doing setups and other machine/shop management. I'm running 100 parts an hour on a 20-second cycle time (and probably got to that level 3rd day). I do think of all the women and children running these machines in other parts of the world and back during our "war-times". Lots of mind-free time eh.

I daydream about the unused mill and lathe in the shop.

They bought a CNC machine, but it didn't work into their production model so they sold it.

It's work and it's metal...so it's a foot in the door. And great folks, good hours, we'll see where it goes.

When I was in my early 20's I bought an ancient screw machine shop. The whole shop for a few grand.

In the lot were nine Tornos from WWI era. They were beautiful machines. I never got to see them run, but was told the majority of them made 1911 firing pins since they were new up to a few years before I bought them.

I don't remember the specs on the machines, but I do remember they had crazy spindle RPM for their age, and yes, they really were WWI era. I was told the machines ran brazed carbide tooling since the late 30's. They came with some wild, like amazing wild ground carbide form tools. Little 1/4" and 5/16" shanks.

Truly impressive machines. I sold the lot of machines and tooling on Ebay. Hope they went to a good home.

Found out more. That I LOVE my little 1/2 Push Button machines and ...really don't care for... the bigger 3/4 machines. I got moved over to those oil-slinging heifers for part of a day. Awkward to feed and start, never did get a good rhythm worked out. Boy was I happy to get back on the little ones.

Speaking about it later the boss says he'd like to have another pair of Push-Button machines, that the 3/4 machines are overkill for the .313" stock we're running on them (and less user friendly)...so I'm out here a huntin' B&S 1/2" Push Button machines. Holler!

That was common music around Detroit....

A trio (well, perhaps a duet) of Brown & Sharpe Screw Machines are currently listed on the Cow Hampshire Craigslist.

See Vintage Brown & Sharpe screw machines



Heh. Seller knows his market - reports to say...

Perfect for a collector of antique machinery. They certainly in my eyes are work of art and if my wife would let me put one in the living room I would. They probably belong in a museum

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Sounds like he belongs here....Somebody should send him an invite to the forum? But that might sour the deal.

Joe in NH

Dead thread I know, but I saw the craigslist listing for the shop in the video and figured I would post it.

Drill Presses, Milling Machines, Smog Hog
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/mat/4787762519.html

alskdjfhg said:

Dead thread I know.......

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Alskd, no thread is dead until the lights go out or Milicron expires. This is a great thread, and that was a good video someone posted. B&S screw machines are very cool.

I was looking for a good circulating/cutting/hydraulic oil for my 2 B&S screw machines since Texaco Rando HD 46 is no longer made, and I ran across this thread - machining brass only.

It's great to see young guys who know the name and marvel at the ingenuity of the guys who made them and the durability of the machines themselves.

I only have 2 and they only make 3 parts, but they've been making them for 20 years after Brownies became obsolete in the US. I bought them for so cheap it's almost criminal - but at least they didn't go to Peru or Chile or Mexico.
One of the guys I bought one of them from drove up from Bridgeton, Me. to Bangor to teach me how it worked, and to show me how to set up my own job.

Great guy from Merrimac Mfg. I'd been buying parts from him, but was moving 2500 miles away and the parts were heavy. Also, I was getting older and wanted to get off the turret lathe that I was making two other parts on - identical except for the diameter. These parts were all for my own product by the way.

They are fun machines to listen to but they love to fuck with your head when you are doing something else and they are running. All of a sudden, they will make a different noise - and lemme tell you - different noises can mean a whole lot of work that you didn't expect to happen, and always at the wrong time.

But there's nothing you can do if something fucked up anyhow, cause there's no way you can get up in time to stop the machine. But you still stop and listen for the next index and the sound of what is suppose to happen next . And it almost always does.

I'm always assembling when they are running, and it is so nice to know that when I go to run a machine screw into one of the standoffs, that it is the right length, and the chances of cross threading are very close to zero. Even then, it's often the screw and not the threaded standoff.

Well if anyone knows of any cutting/circulating hydraulic oil guaranteed not to stain or tarnish brass, please let me know. From pawing around on the internet it looks like Shell Tellus S2 MX 46 or Mobile DTE 25 will do the job . All I need is one 55 gallon drum.

Here's another video for anyone interested. Both machines are 3/4" - one an ultramatic the other an older square base.

http://www.miterclamp.com/videos/BSRun.wmv

Cheers,
Jim