Joe Michaels
Diamond
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Location
- Shandaken, NY, USA
RE: "Cross Pollination", or Vernon Lathe pretending to be a Hendey
Rather than hijack a thread of send it off on a tangent, I think starting a new thread was the better thing to do. I had been following various threads on this 'board over the years and, like many of us, have scratched my head as to the design similarities between various machine tool builders. This head scratching is nothing new, and dates back to my teenage years when I first saw a Seneca Falls lathe and realized the basic similarities to a South Bend. A few years later, at Brooklyn Tech HS, I started noticing the basic similarities in geared head engine lathes made in the 30's and 40's. Working in machine shops in summers and part time during my school years, I kept noticing how similar in overall size and mass a "generation" of US built engine lathes seemed- whether it was Reed & Prentice, Lodge and Shipley, Sidney, Bradford, and a few other makes, these lathes seemed outwardly quite similar. I know there were differences inside the headstocks and aprons, and some differed a bit in design and material of the beds and bedways, but overall, there were a lot of similarities.
In 1973 or 74, prowling the Calamari Brothers Junkyard in New London, CT, I came upon an intact Flather lathe. This lathe should have gone home with me, only I was living in a small rented place. The Flather lathe had a quick change box on it that struck me as very much like the design of what South Bend used over their entire line and over many years.
I kept that in the back of my mind, and began noticing camelback drills. In bad light and a short distance off, IMO, it is difficult to tell one maker's camelback drill from the next. US built radial drills have a number of similarities from one maker to the next. Whether this is an unofficial standardizing of controls or this "cross pollination" is something to think about.
A few years later, working on medium speed diesel engines, I started noticing similarities there as well. I worked on the startup of a Baldwin 6 cylinder diesel driving a generator in a stationary plant. I also worked on some 539 series Alco diesel engines. I saw a lot of similarities in the design. Once again, I was scratching my head and wondering how two competing manufacturers would have diesel engine designs that were so similar. Both were going after the same market (railroad switch engines), so the diesels would have had similar horsepower ratings and overall size to fit in the envelope of a switch engine. That being said, and using pretty much the same American Bosch fuel injection pumps and injectors, I still wondered at the similarities.
The use of what appears to be a solid Hendey design of quick change gearbox and apron on lathes from other manufacturers is the latest design enigma to get me thinking about this sort of "cross pollination". It brings to mind a story a mining engineer told me in about 1977. He was an old man at that point in time, and we were working on a powerplant in Marquette, Michigan. The oldtimer took a liking to me, and told me he had started his career with the copper mining companies up in the Keewanaw Peninsula, at the tip of Michigan's UP. The mining company he worked for operated the Quincy Mine, and was in need of a new high capacity mine hoist for it. They contacted Nordberg in Milwaukee, WI, and went to contract for what was to become the biggest Corliss engine driven mine hoist in the world for a time. Nordberg had a mechanical engineer who was the lead on the design of Corliss engines and mine hoists. About the time the ink was drying on the contract between Nordberg and the Quincy mine, this engineer jumped ship and went to work for Ingersoll Rand in their New York City offices. This threw Nordberg and Quincy Mine a curve. The old mining engineer told me that he travelled by train to NYC with another couple of engineers and managers from Quincy Mine. They had set up a meeting with Ingersoll Rand, Nordberg, and this particular engineer. What came out of it was Nordberg signed a contract with I-R for the services of this particular engineer for the duration of the Quincy mine hoist project.
The story stuck with me, and a few years later, I came upon the name of William Woodard. Woodard was a mechanical engineer who designed a number of steam locomotives in the USA. Woodard is probably best remembered for working for Lima Locomotive Works and developing the Berkshire class locomotives. In actuality, Woodard worked for American Locomotive and probably did some design work for Baldwin.
Getting back to the question of how Hendey's design of quick change box and apron wound up used on the Vernon lathe and the Edlund-Mulliner lathe, it would open a few possibilities:
-the two manufacturers (Vernon and Edlund-Mulliner) signed licensing agreements with Hendey and paid a royalty on each lathe using Hendey's designs. Hendey's designs were likely protected by patents, so the lesser lathe builders may well have signed an agreement and paid royalties on each lathe using the Hendey patents.
-an engineer or designer who had worked for Hendey jumped ship and became a "free agent", similar to William Woodard, or that Nordberg Engineer. He had worked on the designs of the lathes or at least the quick change boxes and aprons, while at Hendey, so was able to help other manufacturers set up production of them. He may well have had a roll of drawings for all of the parts and assemblies, made while he was with Hendey.
-copying another manufacturer's machine tool would not be hard to do. It would have been easy enough to have a "third party" order a new Hendey lathe, move it to Vernon or Edlund's plant, take it apart, and "reverse engineer" all the parts. It is what the Japanese did with great success, and now the Chinese are doing it.
The danger in this gets back to whether Hendey's designs were unique enough to be protected by patents. If Vernon or Edlund-Mulliner were able to change a few details, they might have been able to get around the Hendey patents.
In a region like the Cincinnati, Ohio area, there were many machine tool builders. Some rose to be giants, some faded into obscurity after building a few machine tools. Some of the smaller ones were absorbed into the giants. In a place like Cincinnati, engineers and designer/draftsmen went from one machine tool builder to another, so some "cross pollination" and commonality in the designs would be expectable. New England was the cradle of the US Machine Tool Industry, and a few firms hung on there into the 1950's. Notably, these were Hendey, along with Reed and Prentice. Edlund-Mulliner was in Syracuse, or Cortlandt, NY (if I am not mistaken). Not as many engineers and designers of machine tools, and not as many machine tool builders in the great Northeast, but enough to have some movement of engineers and designers between the firms.
My own guess is that Vernon and Edlund-Mulliner people may well have been using Hendey lathes in their own toolrooms. They may have said: "We are building a basic engine lathe, but it is not up to current standards. We need to get a good quick change gearbox and we need to improve and strengthen the apron..." With that in mind, they realized Hendey was making a fine lathe. I'd like to think some ethical behavior was the rule of the day, and that the principals at Vernon or Edlund-Mulliner worked out a licensing agreement with Hendey. Hendey was never a big player like the Cinncinnati firms (LeBlond, Lodge and Shipley, American Tool Works). Hendey was a business, and if they could make a few extra bucks licensing the other firms to use their designs, they did.
In a modern and more common example, think of some automotive patents and parts. In the early years, into the 50's and 60's, smaller car makers and smaller truck makers bought engines and transmissions and rear ends from other manufacturers. Chrysler had their New Process division making transfer cases for four wheel drive vehicles. Those transfer cases were purchased from Chrysler/New Process and used in great numbers by their competitors in similar classes of vehicles. GM builds a bullet proof automatic transmission. From what I have heard, a few other manufacturers of automobiles buy their automatic transmissions from GM.
In the auto industry, various designs of engines and other systems on a car or truck were patented by their original manufacturers. Competing manufacturers often went to contract and were licensed to use those designs.
Using the auto industry as an example, my guess is Hendey licensed the other lathe builders to use their designs of quick change box and apron. Knowing something of machine tools, I would think that Hendey, as well as the other lathe builders, knew what it took to design a quick change gearbox, as well as to make it work on their design of lathe. There may be subtle differences requiring different castings than what Hendey was using, so the other lathe builders were on their own to adapt the design- once they had the license- to work on their design of lathe.
It's all food for thought, and as the oft-repeated saying goes: "Dead Men Tell No Tales". Anyone who might have known the details of how Vernon or Edlund-Mulliner came to be using Hendey's designs is probably long dead. Unless someone saved the business records of Hendey going back into the late 1800's-1920's, the details of any licensing agreements are lost to history. The focus with preserving machine tools is on parts or drawings of them, and the business end and records of it are not something anyone has a real interest in once a machine tool builder is long gone.
Rather than hijack a thread of send it off on a tangent, I think starting a new thread was the better thing to do. I had been following various threads on this 'board over the years and, like many of us, have scratched my head as to the design similarities between various machine tool builders. This head scratching is nothing new, and dates back to my teenage years when I first saw a Seneca Falls lathe and realized the basic similarities to a South Bend. A few years later, at Brooklyn Tech HS, I started noticing the basic similarities in geared head engine lathes made in the 30's and 40's. Working in machine shops in summers and part time during my school years, I kept noticing how similar in overall size and mass a "generation" of US built engine lathes seemed- whether it was Reed & Prentice, Lodge and Shipley, Sidney, Bradford, and a few other makes, these lathes seemed outwardly quite similar. I know there were differences inside the headstocks and aprons, and some differed a bit in design and material of the beds and bedways, but overall, there were a lot of similarities.
In 1973 or 74, prowling the Calamari Brothers Junkyard in New London, CT, I came upon an intact Flather lathe. This lathe should have gone home with me, only I was living in a small rented place. The Flather lathe had a quick change box on it that struck me as very much like the design of what South Bend used over their entire line and over many years.
I kept that in the back of my mind, and began noticing camelback drills. In bad light and a short distance off, IMO, it is difficult to tell one maker's camelback drill from the next. US built radial drills have a number of similarities from one maker to the next. Whether this is an unofficial standardizing of controls or this "cross pollination" is something to think about.
A few years later, working on medium speed diesel engines, I started noticing similarities there as well. I worked on the startup of a Baldwin 6 cylinder diesel driving a generator in a stationary plant. I also worked on some 539 series Alco diesel engines. I saw a lot of similarities in the design. Once again, I was scratching my head and wondering how two competing manufacturers would have diesel engine designs that were so similar. Both were going after the same market (railroad switch engines), so the diesels would have had similar horsepower ratings and overall size to fit in the envelope of a switch engine. That being said, and using pretty much the same American Bosch fuel injection pumps and injectors, I still wondered at the similarities.
The use of what appears to be a solid Hendey design of quick change gearbox and apron on lathes from other manufacturers is the latest design enigma to get me thinking about this sort of "cross pollination". It brings to mind a story a mining engineer told me in about 1977. He was an old man at that point in time, and we were working on a powerplant in Marquette, Michigan. The oldtimer took a liking to me, and told me he had started his career with the copper mining companies up in the Keewanaw Peninsula, at the tip of Michigan's UP. The mining company he worked for operated the Quincy Mine, and was in need of a new high capacity mine hoist for it. They contacted Nordberg in Milwaukee, WI, and went to contract for what was to become the biggest Corliss engine driven mine hoist in the world for a time. Nordberg had a mechanical engineer who was the lead on the design of Corliss engines and mine hoists. About the time the ink was drying on the contract between Nordberg and the Quincy mine, this engineer jumped ship and went to work for Ingersoll Rand in their New York City offices. This threw Nordberg and Quincy Mine a curve. The old mining engineer told me that he travelled by train to NYC with another couple of engineers and managers from Quincy Mine. They had set up a meeting with Ingersoll Rand, Nordberg, and this particular engineer. What came out of it was Nordberg signed a contract with I-R for the services of this particular engineer for the duration of the Quincy mine hoist project.
The story stuck with me, and a few years later, I came upon the name of William Woodard. Woodard was a mechanical engineer who designed a number of steam locomotives in the USA. Woodard is probably best remembered for working for Lima Locomotive Works and developing the Berkshire class locomotives. In actuality, Woodard worked for American Locomotive and probably did some design work for Baldwin.
Getting back to the question of how Hendey's design of quick change box and apron wound up used on the Vernon lathe and the Edlund-Mulliner lathe, it would open a few possibilities:
-the two manufacturers (Vernon and Edlund-Mulliner) signed licensing agreements with Hendey and paid a royalty on each lathe using Hendey's designs. Hendey's designs were likely protected by patents, so the lesser lathe builders may well have signed an agreement and paid royalties on each lathe using the Hendey patents.
-an engineer or designer who had worked for Hendey jumped ship and became a "free agent", similar to William Woodard, or that Nordberg Engineer. He had worked on the designs of the lathes or at least the quick change boxes and aprons, while at Hendey, so was able to help other manufacturers set up production of them. He may well have had a roll of drawings for all of the parts and assemblies, made while he was with Hendey.
-copying another manufacturer's machine tool would not be hard to do. It would have been easy enough to have a "third party" order a new Hendey lathe, move it to Vernon or Edlund's plant, take it apart, and "reverse engineer" all the parts. It is what the Japanese did with great success, and now the Chinese are doing it.
The danger in this gets back to whether Hendey's designs were unique enough to be protected by patents. If Vernon or Edlund-Mulliner were able to change a few details, they might have been able to get around the Hendey patents.
In a region like the Cincinnati, Ohio area, there were many machine tool builders. Some rose to be giants, some faded into obscurity after building a few machine tools. Some of the smaller ones were absorbed into the giants. In a place like Cincinnati, engineers and designer/draftsmen went from one machine tool builder to another, so some "cross pollination" and commonality in the designs would be expectable. New England was the cradle of the US Machine Tool Industry, and a few firms hung on there into the 1950's. Notably, these were Hendey, along with Reed and Prentice. Edlund-Mulliner was in Syracuse, or Cortlandt, NY (if I am not mistaken). Not as many engineers and designers of machine tools, and not as many machine tool builders in the great Northeast, but enough to have some movement of engineers and designers between the firms.
My own guess is that Vernon and Edlund-Mulliner people may well have been using Hendey lathes in their own toolrooms. They may have said: "We are building a basic engine lathe, but it is not up to current standards. We need to get a good quick change gearbox and we need to improve and strengthen the apron..." With that in mind, they realized Hendey was making a fine lathe. I'd like to think some ethical behavior was the rule of the day, and that the principals at Vernon or Edlund-Mulliner worked out a licensing agreement with Hendey. Hendey was never a big player like the Cinncinnati firms (LeBlond, Lodge and Shipley, American Tool Works). Hendey was a business, and if they could make a few extra bucks licensing the other firms to use their designs, they did.
In a modern and more common example, think of some automotive patents and parts. In the early years, into the 50's and 60's, smaller car makers and smaller truck makers bought engines and transmissions and rear ends from other manufacturers. Chrysler had their New Process division making transfer cases for four wheel drive vehicles. Those transfer cases were purchased from Chrysler/New Process and used in great numbers by their competitors in similar classes of vehicles. GM builds a bullet proof automatic transmission. From what I have heard, a few other manufacturers of automobiles buy their automatic transmissions from GM.
In the auto industry, various designs of engines and other systems on a car or truck were patented by their original manufacturers. Competing manufacturers often went to contract and were licensed to use those designs.
Using the auto industry as an example, my guess is Hendey licensed the other lathe builders to use their designs of quick change box and apron. Knowing something of machine tools, I would think that Hendey, as well as the other lathe builders, knew what it took to design a quick change gearbox, as well as to make it work on their design of lathe. There may be subtle differences requiring different castings than what Hendey was using, so the other lathe builders were on their own to adapt the design- once they had the license- to work on their design of lathe.
It's all food for thought, and as the oft-repeated saying goes: "Dead Men Tell No Tales". Anyone who might have known the details of how Vernon or Edlund-Mulliner came to be using Hendey's designs is probably long dead. Unless someone saved the business records of Hendey going back into the late 1800's-1920's, the details of any licensing agreements are lost to history. The focus with preserving machine tools is on parts or drawings of them, and the business end and records of it are not something anyone has a real interest in once a machine tool builder is long gone.