A Recent Visit to Bullard Machine's Factory

I thought some may be interested in seeing some photos I snapped during a visit a few weeks back to Bullard Machine's old factory, currently BJ's of Fairfield CT The wife found it funny to see me taking pictures in a BJ's but it is quite a space.

They did leave the old cranes hanging in there, one can only imagine what the place was like when it was up and running. BJ's currently occupies about half of one of the buildings on the site, and a movie theater occupies the other half of the building. The BJ's itself is rather large but it really gives you a good sense of scale of what the plant was once like. There are 3 other large industrial buildings in the area one on each side, I believe one was the old foundry and I am not sure what the other was. I have to assume this was the main plant floor, but no idea if heavy machining took place right alongside of final assembly. Is anyone here familiar with what the plant once was? One can only imagine what the place once was like. The building if memory serves me correctly has a main bay running down the center with the really big cranes, 2 auxillary bays on either side, and then I think there was a smaller bay.

Walking through the plant it doesn't take much to imagine the big VTL's and HBM's that must have once not too long ago occupied the great space. After staring up at the big cranes it wasn't too hard to close one's eyes and imagine the base of a large VTL floating gracefully overhead in there.

I would be curious how the workflow took place. In those large shops with the big overhead cranes were people allowed to work beneath a flying load? If not how often did loads "fly" overhead? I have to imagine that there would have been a lot of work taking place on those floors back in the day.


Anyone know of any pictures of this plant back in her prime?

It is too bad Bullard is no longer building machines. It is nice when the building can be saved and put to good use. That preserves both the old building and one less big box encroaching on the suburbs or a small farm lot. Dont know anything about Fairfiled, but seems the big box stores around here have a preference to locate on virgin ground just outside city limits. The old urban buildings, leak until unsafe, then eventually come down one way or another.

Mm. Very disappointing. " Bullard " had a great reputation for vertical and horizontal boring machines. That looks like a really nice OHTC.

In answer to your crane questions, work travelled overhead all the time. Crane driving was a full time job. If you had what was considered a 'dangerous ' load you sounded the warning ' Klaxon' and everybody in your path got out of the way. I don't recall many accidents although I do remember one stand in crane driver breaking the golden rule of " Never travel with the hooks hanging free ".

The loose chains wrapped themselves around the drive shafts on top of a big Plano-mill and did a fair amount of damage to the shafts. Plus halting the crane in it's tracks.

I set off in the wrong direction once and ran a 40 ton OHTC into the end stops and the brick wall of the building. That made a fair old bang. Another time I was turning over a big bed plate and accidentally went down instead of up to catch the load and allowed the bed plate to fall further than it should have. The shock load made me think the crane was going to come down.

I did have the trolley car style up/down lever come off in my hand once but luckily no harm was done.

Regards Tyrone.

Took a tour of the Bullard plant in the early 80's they were everything but closed at the time . The size of the machines in there were huge a Grey planer mill that you could park a Suburban on . The only machine running while we were there was a planer cutting dove tail ways .Bill

Not my first choice to see a big box store anywhere, but this is a FAR better use of a huge space that would have otherwise languished until it was derelict and then been razed. Way too many places here have suffered that end. These folks did a really nice job of updating a preserving this building, even if they have no clue its significance in industrial history.

Home Depot may just have a lease, and yea maybe no clue? I think it was lucky that a big box just installs shelving while other office or industry would have to rework the interior. Interesting how it came out with open interior.

I know it is fashionable to hate the big box. I built my house in the 1980s. Took about 10 years of time and money to get it done. The biggest challenge was not design or permits. You know what it was? It was buying materials for an honest price. All these home centers, plumbing and electric supplies were screwing the public. A contractor could get a real sweet deal, while guys off the street would pay DOUBLE! I tell you, some places even had a contempt for the public. The plumbing places were the worst. Real bucnh of a-holes and they deserve what they all got with Home Depot. Home depot treats everyone right. Right price and almost as important right attitude. China imports that happening anyway. Whole other deal. In the good ol days it was Japanese crap. There was a hugh vacuum and Home Depot filled it.

I made deliveries there back in 1976 or 77 can't remember exactly. I had a job for a short time with a dry ice company out of New Haven. The place was huge and I remember the traveling cranes that covered the entire shop. On one end there was a drive through bay for trailer trucks with a railroad track next to it that allowed flat bed rail cars to be at floor level inside the building. I would see bearing races maybe 18-24" in the dry ice box to shrink them for installation.
I was awed at the size of everything, to me it was the place that made machines that made other machines. Sad how manufacturing in CT and the rest of the USA for that matter had disappeared.