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Some WWII reading material---Bendix--For free.

tommy1010

Stainless
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Location
northeastern Pa, USA
I was going through some material I have and found this. These were printed every two weeks for the workers at Bendix in Philadelphia during the war. This magazine is in great shape and if you want it PM me your mailing address and I will send it to you free. Maybe you had a father or grandfather who worked there. Bendix in Philadelphia. When I hear Bendix I think brakes but evidently they made aviation stuff also. Check the pics. It is dated June 19, 1944. First come first served. Thanks.


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According to Google maps the building is still there and has a full parking lot!

Google Maps

Bendix was a huge builder of Aircraft instruments. They were known for there turn & Bank indicators and I believe they were the first Co. to manufacture an automatic pilot.
 
And in addition they made tons of electrical connectors of various types - where I retired from we used a lot of them. John is right, as usual.

Plant that made the magnetos and other ignition back in the day expanded into connectors later on. Was located in Sidney, NY - a very small town in Delaware County. Typical of the work and technology that was scattered across upstate NY in the 20th century that is now gone. Below is from a Delaware County web site. Plant started in mid 20s with just a few workers and actually grew significantly in mid 30s to about 750, a rarity. Started as Scintilla and then Bendix bought but locals used the Scintilla moniker for a long time.

By 1942, the crucial need for wartime engine parts had increased its work force to 4000.
Women’s wages started at 35 cents and men at 50 cents per hour. Large numbers of employees
came from all over Delaware County, as well as from surrounding counties using bicycles, autos,
buses and even trains. In 1944, there were over 8600 employees working around the clock
providing the best magnetos and ignition products for planes, tanks and even PT boats. In
comparison to 1940, the entire population of Delaware was just fewer than 41,000 people.

Amphenol bought the connector business and built a new plant after the flood about 10 years ago and the old plant is now gone.

Dale
 
Still have a "wind-up" starter (non electrical or inertial ) starter - I'll have to see if they made it

This is the one you can see the ground crew winding these up for all they are worth in old movies / films

I'll have to see if they made it

Yep - an old Eclispe Series 11. Eclipse was a division of Bendix - states it was made in Bendix, New Jersey (a part time name for Teterboro ).

These are the hand cranked jobs with the amazing step up gearing that gets a 7" flywheel going like crazy before you engage the starter clutch - assuming you have a few stalwarts outside the aircraft willing to crank it up to speed:D
 
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It would be nice, if the recipient could scan them in and post them for all to read.

Instead of ending up in a private collection.
 
Yep - an old Eclispe Series 11. Eclipse was a division of Bendix - states it was made in Bendix, New Jersey (a part time name for Teterboro ).

As usual John has interesting insight! And there was the Eclipse plant in Elmira Heights that made fuel pumps and I don't know what else. That is closer than Sidney to me, only 18 miles or so. So I looked it up and cut and pasted the below - see below

During World War II, the Eclipse plant in Elmira Heights was part of the United States’ “arsenal for democracy.” Eclipse started making bicycles and coaster brakes at the plant in 1895. In 1938, the company became a division of the Bendix Aviation Corp. and began the switch from producing bicycle parts and engine starters to ordnance for the war effort. Over the course of the war, Eclipse Machine Division produced anti-aircraft shells, automatic time fuzes for the anti-aircraft shells, and 20mm aircraft cannons. It also continued to make Bendix starter drives for military vehicles, as well as, aircraft magnetos and fuel injection pumps for the B-29 Super-Fortress.

The wartime production boom created thousands of jobs in the area. In January 1940, the Eclipse Machine Division employed 715 people. Just three years later, in January 1943, it hit its peak payroll of 8,594 workers. Most areas of the country were suffering from a labor shortage with so many people serving in the military. At Eclipse, 1,249 men and 152 women had gone off to fight. 36 of them died in service. Because of the labor shortage, many of the plant’s new employees were women. In fact, there were more women working as hourly-rated employees at the plant at one time than there were men.

The total war contracts for the Eclipse Machine Division during World War II amounted to $176,800,000, or over $2 billion today. The Elmira Heights plant produced millions of 1.1 projectiles, 23,100,000 automatic time fuses for anti-aircraft shells, 22,500 20mm aircraft cannon, 10,775,000 anti-aircraft shells, 52,000 magnetos for aircraft, and over 22,000 fuel injection pumps.

When I was in high school and college (62-70) the plant made the Bendix electric fuel pumps that got real popular. Still a little manufacturing left there but a lot of the old plant has been torn down. Sign out front now reads Motor Components Facet Purolator - I think they have been sold and reorganized more times than I change my socks. Still making electric fuel pumps.

I should see if they made the fuel pump that failed and caused my Dad to have a dead stick landing in a gully while doing touch and goes at what is now Duchess County Airport - then a satellite strip for Stewart Air Base in 1944 while in flight training. He and the IP totaled the AT-6. Known failure mode - I have a copy of the accident report that was exactly as he always told the story. Except he never told me he did not have part of his harness hooked and got written up for it. For totaling he also was awarded - in formation - the Royal Japanese Piss Pot - a beat up pot on a string. He got to wear it until someone else had an accident and then got to pass it along.

Dale
 
Motorcar-engine starter gear system is known in Uruguay as “el béndix”; nobody knows who Bendix was, the
system dates from perhaps a century ago, is made now by many others but the name stuck.
 
Still have a "wind-up" starter (non electrical or inertial ) starter - I'll have to see if they made it

This is the one you can see the ground crew winding these up for all they are worth in old movies / films

Yep - an old Eclipse Series 11. Eclipse was a division of Bendix - states it was made in Bendix, New Jersey (a part time name for Teterboro ).

These are the hand cranked jobs with the amazing step up gearing that gets a 7" flywheel going like crazy before you engage the starter clutch - assuming you have a few stalwarts outside the aircraft willing to crank it up to speed:D

You can see one in action in the 1941 Warner Brothers film DIVE BOMBER with Errol Flynn & Fred MacMurray. Some of it was shot on the USS Enterprise (CCV-6) in one scene there launching Curtiss SDP-3 biplanes. (One of the last biplanes to serve with the US Navy)

John in your post you say that you have a "wind up starter (non-electrical or inertial) starter" then you say it's a "hand cranked job with the amazing step up gearing thats gets a 7" flywheel going like crazy before you engage the starter clutch"

Isn't this an inertial starter?
 
During World War II, the Eclipse plant in Elmira Heights was part of the United States’ “arsenal for democracy.”

Very interesting! I don't think I've ever read the numbers and totals, mostly just 'heard some details' from older guys telling stories about the plant. Not sure if they still build Bendix starter drives there anymore, but yes, still electric fuel pumps. Possibly carburetors in the '50-60's and work done on the first electronic automotive fuel injection systems. I knew a guy that worked at the plant as an engineer in the '60's involved with said fuel injection electronic systems. He also worked for a while for Conelec. see below...

Interesting side note:
A company called Conelec, spun off by a couple engineers there was located in Elmira. Specialized in automotive electronic fuel injection systems. A page about the company: You are visting the best 1968 Shelby webpage !!!
Years ago a neighbor that worked as a toolmaker at Bendix (Elmira Heights) gave me a box of several new Bendix fuel pumps and in the box was also a new Conelec pump.
 
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Started as Scintilla and then Bendix bought but locals used the Scintilla moniker for a long time.

I just registered to comment here. I learned over Thanksgiving that my late grandfather, a retired mail carrier in Deposit NY, worked at Scintilla as a machinist during WWII. The other day, I was gifted a knife that he made from a file while working there.
 
As Duckfarmer27 notes, the plant began as Scintilla and became a part of Bendix Aviation. Scintilla was either a German of Swiss parent company. With the onset of WWII, that connection was severed and I believe it was then that the plant was merged into Bendix. Scintilla, which means 'shower of sparks', was originally a builder of magnetos for engine ignition systems. I think their first location was in Manhattan (aka, NY City). When business increased, they moved to Sidney, NY. Some of my co-workers at the powerplant where I worked and retired from had started their own careers at Scintilla. Though the plant was part of Bendix when they worked there, they all referred to it as "Scintilla". These guys told me that there were still a few older employees who were holdovers from the Scintilla days, and they were mainly Swiss or German immigrant toolmakers. These co workers also told me that in the days when magnetos were being produced, large numbers of small precision parts were required, and this was done using large numbers of 'automatics' (screw machines) as well as production precision grinding operations. When aircraft stopped using piston engines in any real numbers, Scintilla/Bendix shifted production from magnetos. They shifted to ignitions for jet engines, and then entirely to the production of 'multi-pin' wiring harness connectors. At some point, the name of the plant was changed to "Amphenol", and this may mean a whole new ownership, but the product focus is still multi-pin wiring harness connectors. These are used for aircraft wiring harnesses as well as for other systems such as navigation, controls, instrumentation and plenty of defense related uses.

Deposit Kid: When I saw your handle, I wondered if there was some connection to Deposit, NY. I've passed by Deposit many times, and it's a nice spot along the Delaware River. The knife your grandfather made looks like it might have been intended for hunting or fishing, kind of resembling a Finnish fishing knife but having some other elements to it. Did you give the person who gave you that knife a penny ? Old belief that my wife and plenty of others hold to is that if you give someone a knife or other sharp-edged tool or instrument that might be used as a weapon, they have to give you a coin in return. It is some old-country belief that assures the knife (or other sharp edged tool) will not be turned against you or used for some other bad purpose.

You are a long way from Deposit, NY, noting your location in Texas. It's nice country around Deposit, NY. Sidney is a bit out of the way, and I always wondered why Scintilla located there. Possibly, some incentive was offered by the village of Sidney, or some investors were up that way. During WWII, Sidney was at its peak of activity with Scintilla making literally tens of thousands of magnetos for aircraft engines for the War Effort. I always associated Scintilla magnetos with aircraft engines, but I believe they started out making magnetos for all types of engines- automotive, industrial, farm, as well as aircraft. A friend had an old "L" model Gravely tractor, and it had a Scintilla magneto on the engine. Gravely must have used Wico of Fairbanks-Morse mags on about 99 % of their L model tractor engines, so this Scintilla mag is likely a rarity.
 
Radial engine mags ? Dang, you guys are old !

Bendix is a control builder to me. Associated with John Parsons they were among the first, if not the first, to build and sell nc then cnc controls.

Bill Agee ruined them in an orgy of corporate greed and in-fighting. Stupid bastard (who waltzed off with a multi-million dollar golden parachute after destroying two companies.)
 
I've got a real nice G&E 20" shaper that came from the Bendix building in Deerwood business park in Jacksonville.It's not the kind of place I would associate with shapers. The shaper was made in 38-40 long before the park was built (mid 60's)so it probably came from one of their northern plants.
 
I just remembered when I had my last business on the westside a Bendix engineer used to come in and buy stuff.He told me he was working on antilock brakes at the Green Cove Springs airport, late 80's.

Replaced a few "Bendix" springs on the old Ford starters as a kid. Don't know if Bendix made or invented them but that was what all the old guys called them.
The first one I did was on a Model A.The retaining bolt sheared off. After I got the starter out an old guy came walking by stopped and told me to be sure to get the broken bolt out so it wouldn't get jammed between the flywheel and bell housing. Told him that looks like a lot of work. Boy just put a glob of heavy grease on the flywheel hand crank it over. I did and it worked.
 
As usual Joe's memory is good. Swiss company, NYC start in US on 57th street. Sidney operation started in what had been a blind and sash factory. Interesting history at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...cintilla.pdf&usg=AOvVaw15z1Wetmj8ayZR35K9x9Sf It is an interesting read - during WW2 an amazing amount of product came out of this region. Not unlike the Remington Rand typewriter plant in Syracuse that retooled and - among other things - made over 875,000 45 caliber M1911A1 pistols between 1942 and 1945. During my time in the Army I carried some of those.

My good friend here got his first job out of school at the Scintilla plant in the early 60s, lived in Sidney, was an electrical technician on all the test gear. He ended up at IBM as an engineer later on, as I did. I worked in the division that only did military/space avionics. As a result we used a lot of Bendix connectors. Even after Amphenol bought them and changed the name they were still Bendix to us - the design did not change. As packaging density changed from the 70s onward you needed less connectors, assemblies, etc. In a way we put ourselves out of the manufacturing business as we crammed more capability into less and less space. Getting to the moon would have been easier if we'd had iphones.

Dale
 








 
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