Niles-Bement-Pond Company Machine Tools Catalogue 1903

I’m not sure if there has been a link posted to this catalogue some where before a search gave me too many possibilities to try so sorry if it is a repeat.
Niles-Bement-Pond Company Machine Tools Catalogue 1903
Machine tools / Niles-Bement-Pond Company. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library
They appeared to be dealers for Pratt and Whitney machines as well as the larger machines that the built them selves.
Here are a few highlights .
The Section on Lathes Starts here with the Pratt and Whitney 7 x 32” bench Lathe
Machine tools / Niles-Bement-Pond Company. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library
Scroll down for other Pratt and Whitney Lathes
Heavy Engine Lathes by Pond Machine Works starts here
Machine tools / Niles-Bement-Pond Company. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library

Planers start here
Machine tools / Niles-Bement-Pond Company. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library

P & W Hand Milling Machines Start Here
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There are some 700 pages + index so I have not looked at it all.
Regards,
Jim

Jim Christie said:

They appeared to be dealers for Pratt and Whitney machines as well as the larger machines that the built them selves.

Click to expand...

Niles Tool Works is waaay older yet. By 1903, they had been Niles-Bement-Pond - and outright OWNERS of Pratt & Whitney - not 'dealers' - for only three years.

From this catalog and several others that run into the 1920's, I have identified all but one of the 'many' Niles and N-B-P machine-tools I operated at Galis, early 1960's

The missing one may date as far back as the 1870's. A six-foot-swing "horizontal boring LATHE", 11-inch solid advancing quill, rack & pinion operated.

In design concept and execution it seems to have been the "Grandfather", perhaps "Grand Uncle", but not direct "Father", so to speak, of what had not yet become the ubiquitous "horizontal boring MILL".

Jim,
Thanks for that, a very impressive line up of machinery.

While browsing, I came across this Bement Suspended Drilling Machine. I have seen one or two home made versions on this forum, but nothing this large.

I reckon a hat would be good in case of oil drips and any vibration to the ceiling would bring down some dust...

Up the top, that looks like a clever design of counterweight for the quill.

I guess a radial arm drill would be better/faster where possible, as it looks like you have to move your workpiece around under this suspended type.

Several of the wheel lathes were factory-equipped with electric motors. 1903 is about as early as I recall seeing machine tools advertised with motors. Of course it makes sense that heavy railroad machine tools would lead on that front. Any earlier ads for machine tools supplied with integrated electric motors?

Also - I find it interesting that Pratt & Whitney was still selling lathes with a weighted rise and fall carriage as late as 1903. (Page 89)

Peter S said:

..looks like you have to move your workpiece around under this suspended type.

View attachment 200380

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Of course on would.

But keep in mind that the 'workpiece' might be a railway car or locomotive on tracks, a barge in a through-factory canal, windlass aligned, and/or a large and unwieldy structure carried on the back of one or the other of those worthies.

Think of the sort of work "portal" or "gantry" mills do, magnetic base drills not yet invented, (they did have ones that could be chained-on) and this gadget makes more sense.

Peter S said:

Jim,
Thanks for that, a very impressive line up of machinery.

While browsing, I came across this Bement Suspended Drilling Machine. I have seen one or two home made versions on this forum, but nothing this large.

I reckon a hat would be good in case of oil drips and any vibration to the ceiling would bring down some dust...

Up the top, that looks like a clever design of counterweight for the quill.

I guess a radial arm drill would be better/faster where possible, as it looks like you have to move your workpiece around under this suspended type.

View attachment 200380

Click to expand...

make that a hard hat in case the wormy joists fail !

Great stuff Jim, The product lines from some of these old manufactures boggles the mind. One thing that stood out as I was reading the descriptions was the odd codewords they provided for ordering. While perhaps common place in the day, struck me funny.
For example:
Garritibus for the 9 inch drill referenced above and Garritoris for the 14"

Warren said:

One thing that stood out as I was reading the descriptions was the odd codewords they provided for ordering. While perhaps common place in the day, struck me funny.
For example:
Garritibus for the 9 inch drill referenced above and Garritoris for the 14"

Click to expand...

If ever you trip across a copy, have a read of "Girdle Round the Earth" by Hugh Barty-King:

Girdle Round the Earth: History of "Cable and Wireless": Hugh Barty-King: 9784344928: Amazon.com: Books

It's the story of John Pender's "Eastern Telegraph" et al -> Imperial Cables & Communications ==>Cable & Wireless after the merger, 1931, with the Marconi Wireless system.

By 1898 the globe had been spanned by telegraph, but.. it was typically but 4 worlds per minute on the undersea cables. Worse, it had to be worked "simplex". Traffic one one direction only part of the day, a laborious reversal on precise schedule of as much as eight thousand volts INTO one end of the cable to leave enough energy at the other end to move a tiny mirror in a darkened room, read the code from the light beam it deflected.

Both cable operator and company had to use code books to reduce character count for cost reasons. And for timeliness.

It could take more than a week for a message submitted to rise to the top of the queue and actually be transmitted. The more characters, the longer the delay.

Even today, with assured sub-one-second transit times, we use a Stock Keeping Unit AKA "SKU" or 'item number' to place an order.

Addresses were terse as well, but also 'globally unique', even into the 1980's.

Last time I still had reason to care, IIRC The Cable Address for Timken Roller Bearings Company was "TIMROSCO". My own was surname and initials: "WBHACKER".

Registration fees were only about ten US$ a YEAR. Data rate was limited by my ASR-33 TTY. Real. Not virtual.

Didn't get ANY spam or eye-candy advertising though, so it got the job done.

I knew that they were used as codes when communicating by telegraph and have seen them in other old magazines and catalogues but never gave them much thought.

Also Regarding the motor driven machines , I just added another post showing the index links in this thread with regards to electric motors .
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...ng-machinery-1911-other-bulletins-g-e-336080/
I didn’t check out all the links to see if there was any mention of the earliest use on machine tools.
Most of the bulletins listed there are after 1903 .
I would guess that the largest industrial machines may have been among the earlier ones to be converted to motor drive.
Regards
Jim

I found this link I had saved to an article in Foundry Magazine about Making Castings for Giant Lathes at Niles Bement Pond in Hamilton O. from 1919
Foundry. vol.47 (1919). - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library
I thought I would add it to this thread.
Regards,
Jim

Here's a NBP planer near me that's seen better days.
25' by 8' table.

Jim Christie said:

I would guess that the largest industrial machines may have been among the earlier ones to be converted to motor drive.

Click to expand...

Generally the exact opposite, actually. Large machines went into large plants, bespoke power generation easily justified..

First electric-motor inroads went onto SMALL machines, and in small shops or even totally alone, where no lineshaft nor local steam or 'mothership' massive electric motor was practical.

Significant presence starts in the the 1880's, and early 'mediums' were even aboard seagoing vessels - military or civilian - with onboard electric plants, usually Dee Cee - for hoisting, gun turret pointing & c. IIRC.