Donkins Dividing Engine

There may already be some discussion of this machine in other threads on this forum but a quick search didn’t turn up anything,
The article from Machinery Aug. 1910 starting here shows the machine in the Science Museum in Kensington ( London)
Machinery
I don’t know if it is still on display there or not .
They mention Maudslay’s lathe that has been discussed on this forum and a couple of other articles in earlier magazines so I found them and posted the links farther down .
I noticed the name of the author was W.S. Davenport and wondered if there was any connection to Davenport machines .
I knew nothing about them other than I thought they were some time of automatic lathe or screw machines .
I tried a search and found this about Davenport.
Company History | Davenport Machine
I wonder how many heads of companies today would be writing articles for trade magazines ?

Here are the other early machine tool links related to the science museum mentioned above .
Machinery

Machinery
There was some discussion in another thread recently about the first vertical milling machines .
There is an early slot drilling machine shown here.
Machinery
I wonder how many of these machines are still on display or still in storage at the museum ?
if someone knows of other threads that these links might apply to perhaps they could post a link to them to give a cross reference.

Regards,
Jim

Jim,

Great stuff! That’s the first decent picture I can recall seeing of Bryan Donkin’s dividing engine. Needless to say, it’s no longer on display anywhere.

In fact, of the Science Museum machines shown in the article, I can think of three or four which are still on display.

Back to Donkin: George Escol Sellers described him as the most advanced mechanical engineer of the time. People would go to him with promising but unworkable ideas, and he would bring them to fruition. Continuous paper-making. Canned food. The most accurate screws of the day. High security printing for banknotes, etc.

You wondered how many heads of companies today would be writing articles for trade magazines. Well, I can name one boss who was interested in industrial history. I bought a learned tome called ‘Industry before the Industrial Revolution’ by William Rees. Both volumes have a bookplate bearing the name Leighton A. Wilkie. A search showed that he was the founder of DoAll. Close scrutiny shows tiny pictures of a bandsaw and various tools in the bookplates.

I’m currently sitting in a bar in a far off place. Years ago I posted a trade card related to Donkin. It hangs in my hallway...

Might be relevant to this thread.


https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...and-history/engine-turners-trade-card-115169/

Thanks Asquith and Rivett.
It looks like I will have to spend some more time reading the articles more carefully and the Trade Card thread that I don't remember seeing earlier.
I also saw some other references in foot notes a the end of some of the articles so I'll have to try and see if any of them are available on line.
I was also thinking I should try and see what I can find out about some of the contributors to this and other old magazines that may be interesting .
Regards,
Jim

Asquith said:

Jim,

Great stuff! That’s the first decent picture I can recall seeing of Bryan Donkin’s dividing engine. Needless to say, it’s no longer on display anywhere.

In fact, of the Science Museum machines shown in the article, I can think of three or four which are still on display.

Back to Donkin: George Escol Sellers described him as the most advanced mechanical engineer of the time. People would go to him with promising but unworkable ideas, and he would bring them to fruition. Continuous paper-making. Canned food. The most accurate screws of the day. High security printing for banknotes, etc.

You wondered how many heads of companies today would be writing articles for trade magazines. Well, I can name one boss who was interested in industrial history. I bought a learned tome called ‘Industry before the Industrial Revolution’ by William Rees. Both volumes have a bookplate bearing the name Leighton A. Wilkie. A search showed that he was the founder of DoAll. Close scrutiny shows tiny pictures of a bandsaw and various tools in the bookplates.

Click to expand...

Hi Asquith, I may have mentioned before but about 25 years ago I had the task of removing a large Hor Bore from the old " Donkin " factory in Chesterfield. The owners had sold the site to either " ASDA " or " Tesco " and everything was being removed prior to the factory being demolished.
As far as I know they were moving to a new factory on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Chesterfield.

Regards Tyrone.

Tyrone,

Your entertaining account of lucky lifting is in the link posted by Rivett.

The firm is now AVK Donkin, making valves. I think AVK is a Danish firm. Most foreign takeovers of old-established British firms ensure that their heritage is trashed, but not so AVK:-

Bryan Donkin - 25th Anniversary - AVK UK

I have an anniversary book published by Donkin in 1953, which shows the astonishing range of products they made, from precision enginnered products to diving bells. I may post some examples later. Or not.

Asquith said:

Tyrone,

Your entertaining account of lucky lifting is in the link posted by Rivett.

The firm is now AVK Donkin, making valves. I think AVK is a Danish firm. Most foreign takeovers of old-established British firms ensure that their heritage is trashed, but not so AVK:-

Bryan Donkin - 25th Anniversary - AVK UK

I have an anniversary book published by Donkin in 1953, which shows the astonishing range of products they made, from precision enginnered products to diving bells. I may post some examples later. Or not.

Click to expand...

I could write a book about that job and I was only there a week or two. They had skips ( dumpsters ) outside full of all kinds of stuff. I got a little marking punch in a really nice little wooden box that had 6 rotatable numbers so you could stamp serials numbers on jobs. One of the skips was full of those books and I got a copy of the book out of it. I read it during my lunch break, I don't know where it is now.

One the motley crew that were moving the radial arm drill was the operator. He told me it was installed brand new in 1948 and his dad had worked on it from that day. When his dad retired he got the job operating it so it had been in his family for 40 plus years. When the drill went out on the truck the guy had tears in his eyes.


Regards Tyrone.

Bryan Donkin produced machinery and compound printing plates for difficult-to-forge banknotes, labels, etc, in several colours, the invention of Sir William Congreve. The printing plates were made with close-fitting withdrawable parts which allowed the different colours to be applied. See photos here:-

British Museum - Catalogue image

Donkin designed a rose engine to engrave the plates, which was started by Holtzapffel but finished by Donkin. There was also a pantograph milling machine for engraving and for cutting the interlocking shapes in the dies. See photo (from A Brief Account of Bryan Donkin F.R.S. and of the Company he Founded 150 years ago by the Bryan Donkin Co). An article (D. M. Henshaw (1934) Donkin Pantagraph Engraving Machine, with Rose Engine, Transactions of the Newcomen Society) gives the date as c.1820, but states that it was originally made for ‘cutting strainer plates’ for Donkin’s papermaking machinery. Based on a photo of the machine in the article, I can see that it could well have originally been a travelling column planing machine. As converted to a milling machine, the milling head would have been fixed in place over the die (the die fixed to the pantograph). The larger scale template would be mounted on the other end of the pantograph, and the stylus fixed to the cross bar. The milling spindle could be run at between 2000 and 7000 rpm. It would be interesting to know when it was converted into a milling machine.



The last photo is a list showing the versatility of Donkin & Co's work.
……………….
Going back to his dividing engine, Donkin made a number of yard standard scales. One was bought by Joseph Whitworth, who also bought another from Edward Troughton, and from these he produced his own end standards, which became the basis for the many inch standard gauges sold by Whitworth, an essential adjunct to standardised production.