United Shoe Machinery Corp. Sole Cutting Machine

Hello everyone,
I have a United Shoe Machinery Corporation gearless sole cutting machine, model A. I have spent hours trying to find any information online about the machine itself to no avail. There is a fair amount of information in general about USMC as a company, but not much about specific equipment. Would anyone know where I could find out more about this, possible manufacture date ranges, or anything? Thanks for the help!

Our company was part of USMC for awhile. Campbell Bosworth machinery joined up in the 1910's and was split off in the early/mid 1960's when the government got involved.

There are very few USMC machines being supported by anyone at all these days. USMC had a firm grip on their product line, which was a big part of who they were. You leased their machines and ONLY got service from them, or you didn't get to have their machines. When they started downsizing in the 60's, I think they sold off their leases or otherwise cut off all the machines in the field and service for those machines started to go by the wayside. Other than the few machines our company ended up with after the split (Campbell Lockstitch, Cyclone Lockstitch, Royal Perforator, and Boothco Beading machine are the only ones with any substantial inventory left), I think we might have some NOS blades in storage but I'm not sure which models of splitters they are for. If you have any pictures of the machine and the blade I can check them for you. (Google Campbell Randall Machinery Co. and give us a call. Ask for Miles)

I know there are a couple companies back east that might have had old stock at one point, but alot of them have been closing up in the last 20 years. I THINK USM Canada is still around but I don't think they service any of the old machinery anymore.

Long story short, your machine has unfortunately been obsolete for 50 years and there aren't enough of them around for any 3rd party companies to start building parts for them.

I'd like to see a picture of the machine, too.

All I know about sole making is the Hartford Bros. patent in this thread I started, but, got no replies to.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...hartford-bros-bench-shear-341444/#post3058923

Mike

Some of the shoe and boot machinery was fantastic,considering it was pre 1900 in many cases.I knew a guy had a big collection of these machines trying to save them,but land values and property taxes sent them all for scrap about 10 years ago.He lives next to me,and is still working at 95 years of age,making custom boots and shoes.He now has to do things by hand which these machines did in minutes.

Here are some pictures of the machine!





I have been in contact with Smithsonian, Beverly Historical Society and the Cummings Center which was original site of USMC. There isn't really anything out there on the Model A other than some general references to it. Most of the info available starts with the Model C, and picks up a lot with the Model E.

What would folks recommend to use for removing built up grease and dirt? I've been looking around and it seems general recommendation on vintage machines is mineral spirits for a solvent. Would like to stay away from WD40 as it can become sticky later in life.

Aside from the original stated purpose of cutting soles, is that a belt-driven hydraulic clicker press? That is my best guess from the pictures.

USM owned lots of patents, so finding patents for design aspects of your machine can be interesting, if not helpful.

Larry

I took a look at the photos posted of the USM sole cutter. Having no knowledge of how a sole cutter would work, and looking at the pictures the OP posted, I find myself wondering if this "sole cutter" is a mechanical press meant to use "steel rule dies". "Steel rule dies" were a specialized type of die used for cutting leather and similar materials. I know that there were specialized presses made (sometimes called "clickers") for pressing steel rule dies in shoe, boot, and other leather work.

A steel rule die is not a normal die machined from a block of die steel. Rather, it is best explained as a "cookie cutter". A steel rule die is often a piece of hardwood that is sawn to the shape of the part needed to be cut from the leather. The edge of this piece of hardwood has a strip of sharp-edged steel fastened to it with wood screws. The hardwood is cut a bit undersized to allow for the thickness of the "steel rule" cutting edge. The steel rule dies are used in a press to cut parts for luggage, shoes, boots, and similar from leather. When I was a student at Brooklyn Technical HS in the 60's, we learned about steel rule dies, and there was a machine shop up the block which made "clickers" or "steel rule die presses".

My thought is the sole cutter in this thread is basically complete as it is. To make it operational, a set of steel rule dies for various sizes/lasts of soles would be needed. This is likely something USM furnished to their customers, and the sizes and styles of soles would depend on they types of shoes being made.

Making steel rule dies should not be too hard. We had a set of steel rule dies made for cutting tongue-and-fork joints in timing belt material for field splicing when I was working at the powerplant. I had to come up with a solution to eliminate a chronic problem with slipping flat belts on a governor drive, and my solution was to use timing belts. Rather than take a turbine and heavy gearbox apart to get a factory-made timing belt installed, I went with a mechanical splice done at the site. I worked with Gates to design the splice, and went with a set of steel rule dies to cut the forks and tongues out of the timing belt material. We had the dies mounted on regular die-sets and used them in a shop press or "Porta Power" press we took to the job.

If the OP is wanting to use the sole cutter, I suggest he look into getting steel rule dies made for the soles he wants to cut. The press itself looks like it was meant for production work in a shoe factory rather than in a custom boot or shoemaker's shop. A lot of the steel rule die presses used for cutting leather for high-end shoes, boots and gloves in small custom shops (as I learned from that shop up the street from my high school) used a rack and pinion with a large handlever, much like an arbor press. The production presses used compressed air or hydraulics.

The 95yr old bootmaker living nextdoor has a solecutting machine that cuts variable sizes.L&R...he says its a "pantograph",which made my ears prick up,thinking a Deckel,but it aint.

Went on a "works"outing round British United in 1980when I was on TFM course at Leicester Skillcentre. They were there from 1899 to 2000. The main thing that I remember was the tonnage of machine tools several floors up! The Skillcentre Packed in about a year later,a good tonnage of machine tools there too!

About thirty years ago, I was asked to have a look at dismantling and getting a complete boot and shoe manufacturing plant down a couple of stairs, This plant was quite comprehensive and was capable of manufacturing boot's and shoes in a fair quantity, It was part of the works department of a large hospital for the insane, and rthe whole complex was designed in its day to be self sufficient, and also give work to many of the inmates I cannot recall the actual manufacturers of the machinery, but The united boot and Shoe Co rings a bell,

Sadly this venture came to nothing as far as I can recollect and a few years later the hooligans broke in and torched a lovely building, I always thought as times had moved on and more humane treatment methods were being instigated for these souls, previously locked up and out of sight for decades, a similar duty of care could have been to save and reuse an extremely fine building, So big was this institution that at one period in times past this hospital even had there own steam locomotive to transport in wagons of coal and produce from a local railway siding Should one ever read the book by A.J. Cronin, entitled Hatters Castle , It was based around the said institution in which the writer was a doctor at some period during his medical career He also penned his very famous book "The Stars Look Down" which talks of the hardship and struggle of the Scottish Fife miners.

At one stage I also visited a small two man band boot making concern in Glasgow and the two owners working it had a pretty dodgy looking machine to operate This was a belt driven press consisting of a flat platten upon which one placed a sheet of heavy leather, placed on top of the material sharp edged formers of the shape of the sole one desired , brought down the top plattewn, and bingo, one had the desired pressingas, " Some spare fingers anyone?" todays Health and Safety Guru's would have kittens

At one stage in Scotlands past industrial greatness The Ayrshire town of Maybole was a very large centre of the manufacture of boots and shoes, this centre of excellence had from memory about five ? large factories So prolific was the production rates that every day two train loads of produce left the town I am interested in Ted's post the English boot and shoe trade was an extremely large employer of labour and by the sound of things The United boot and Shoe company's works no doubt one of many firms keeping the show on the road , along with the leather production firms all over the U.K. Scotland had many famous firms in that sphere also, nowadays one purchases a pair of shoes and a fortnight later ones feet are getting "Swimming Lessons " In the past years had todays firms turned up with their crap products, The workers and citizens would have given them short shrift Further modenity doesnt always equate to quality.

Here is a picture I found of what I believe is the Model C version being used. I do have the large, original wood press block for this machine as well that is in the photo. I will have to pull it out, and get it set back on here, then take some more pictures.



The setup with the motor is similar to the way my uncle had rigged this up previously. We used this machine for many years to cut out leather patterns using die cutting templates, however, when we got it the electric motor my uncle rigged to it didn't work so we just used a hydraulic jack and plates between top and bottom plate on the machine to press the dies. My dad and I never ran it in the 'proper' configuration.

What I would like to do is clean it, great it up, and try to run it in the normal mode with a new motor. It would be great to find a patent, drawing or any related information, but that is seeming more and more unlikely at this point. Seems Smithsonian and USMC records on specific machines only go back to around 1920, which is well after the Model A which I have.

Is there a cleaning method that folks would recommend to remove existing grease and build up without removing the paint from the surfaces?

TedinNorfolk said:

Went on a "works"outing round British United in 1980when I was on TFM course at Leicester Skillcentre. They were there from 1899 to 2000. The main thing that I remember was the tonnage of machine tools several floors up! The Skillcentre Packed in about a year later,a good tonnage of machine tools there too!

Click to expand...

An old acquaintance of mine (AKA Uncle Frank) was nightshift Toolroom foreman at BU Leicester until he retired in the early 80's, ..... although many didn't, I liked Frank, a proper cantankerous, bloody minded, straight talking old school engineering machinist, the sort of guy you could have a proper argument with and still be mates.


I still have some of the copper laps and counterbores they made in house, along with a collection of ''oddball angle'' - like 10deg, dovetail cutters etc etc.

Oh yes, ...and the T slot faceplate for my Boxford was once a cutting die platen, .....BU had the CI poured to their own spec, - beautiful stuff to machine.



Apparently, despite making a profit, the American parent of BU's bean counters decreed Leicester had to go - bastards


FYI BU History Group

FYI 2 - it was a big place Report - - The British United Shoe Machinery Company, Leicester, a round up. | 28DaysLater.co.uk

That photo is a gem. It demonstrates how the lighting from a window was controlled by machine placement, along with a painted canvas backdrop to avoid showing the actual dark shadowy background behind the canvas. The area to the sides and above the canvas would be cropped when the printing cut was made for the catalog.

I suspect a similar technique, but with a different painted backdrop, was used for some of the cuts in my circa 1907-1918 Hardinge Cataract lathe catalogs.

Larry

Larry, thanks for that explanation. I noticed the backdrop behind the machine and couldn't figure out its true purpose other than to give the operator something nice to look at wile working.

Tom B.

Somewhere in my resource pile I have a number of "cookie cutter" dies for a sole cutting machine. I got them from a scrapyard ( in Massachusetts I believe ) for the sole purpose of making knives or swords from them. Some are about an inch or so tall and maybe .12" or .18" thick and others are quite heavy. If it wasn't so cold out, I would go dig for them and post some pictures.

Thanks for the pics. As others stated it's a press of sorts ("sole cutter" made me think it was a splitting machine or something). We have one we (we being Randall and Co. of Cincinnati Ohio) built around 1900 that's in storage until it can get dressed up and put on display in our lobby. I don't have pictures of it, but it looks similar to yours. It's essentially a mechanical beam press where the bottom beam moves, while the upper beam adjusts your headroom. Somewhere we have on old catalog photo that shows a maple cutting block on the bottom with work tables on the front and back.

I’d consider steel dies and roll them through decreasing height rollers (sic), just as trusses have those “cheese graters “ pressed into the wood.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bwFcqK5AL9w

Perhaps an artist clay “slab roller”

Slab Roller SR14 Leg Set : Slab Roller Accessories

On the topic of building rule-dies: I bring this up because this is a forum full of machinists that care.

Rule dies were THE way to cut out leather blanks for many years. Nowadays, there are CNC "flash-cut" machines that do the same thing ten times as fast, more accurately, and leave a much bigger hole in your check-book. But many many companies are still mass producing product with die press's and rule-dies.

There are many ways to make them. The most common method I've seen for professional volume work are bent and welded to flat stock reinforcing ribs.

BUT, don't expect too much precision from any kind of rule die.

Not that you can't get it, but we determined a long time ago that if you are trying to get really exact cuts you should use dies milled from a solid piece, or get into CNC cutters. Rule-dies are most often built to tolerances of +/- .05 or worse because any better than that is often totally unnecessary for leatherwork and the process of building the die gets too involved. The die cutting process is most often the first in a long line of cutting and fitting before the final product is done. Think of it like the band saw in your shop.

"Precision" leatherworking is often achieved by hand a piece at a time by a skilled worker, or with automation in volume using high end machinery and dies. And that's usually for things like luxury items or odd cross-industry applications.

Again, I'm not saying you can't build precision rule dies, just consider if it's really needed or not. "Don't over-tolerance the part!"

I know this a rather old post but I thought I would share a little insight. Up until 1975, I was a shoe cutter. Experience is all aspects of cutting, uppers, linings, findings, inner, mid and out soles, you name it. The picture that brought me here was a smaller version of a machine known as a beam dinker or dinker for short. They ranged from 3 to 10 feet long. Walker dies were commonly used with these beasts. This smaller machine would have been used for heels and smaller items where the larger machines were used for soles and fiber boards.Needless to say these were dangerous machines and most the old timers wee missing fingers, finger tips and sometimes a thumb. Funny I say old timers where I could be considered as such now.
As long as you worked your table properly, the cutting suface would last a long time befor needing replacement or planing. When the bushings that the main shafts holding the head wore out, you would fill it with babbit. Was fun to run one of these critters as long as you followed the rules and paid attention. They could keep up with the fastest of cutters without skipping a beat. The last place I worked that employed this type machine had one main motor, many pulleys and old leather belts that were crimped together, 1800's style. Became a welder / fabricator in 1976 and left all that behind. Hope this little bit a trivia was enlightening.

On our archived Randall "dieing-out" press (as they called the style), the press is activated via a foot pedal. I've always thought it interesting that nearly all of the old press equipment was hands free foot operated, allowing the operator to have both hands available to position work and cut off fingers at will.

Thanks to OSHA, new machinery is the opposite, being 2 hand operated with safety mechanisms keeping operators from locking one button. The few presses that are foot operated often will have a photo-sensor to stop the press if something gets close to the cutting area. Consequently, work centering and holding guides have also become more necessary.

The troubling part is that I've done service calls to a lot of the "old school" companies and it's not un-common for a newer 2 hand operated machine to be hacked and modified to use a foot pedal. They get away with it when the inspectors come around by using lots of red paint, warning stickers, and crude plexi-glass shields. Luckily this trend has been dieing out though.

On this same topic, mechanical type press's are almost entirely obsolete these days in leatherworking. In the last 10 years, two manufacturers of these machines, Western and Benchmaster (same company that made the little bench-top mills) have went out of business as the safer hydraulic machines have taken over. There are still a lot of the old machines out there, but no new ones are being sold.

The mechanical press'es we made went obsolete 50 years ago as we couldn't keep up with the other mechanical press makers, but the previous company owners were bright enough to support the other machines and switch over to selling hydraulic machines that were built in Italy, which we still service and sell today.

This is all in reference to leatherworking applications. I know there's still application in metalworking for mechanical type press's. We still have a couple of small Alva F Allen mechanical press's in use in our machine shop (5 ton and 8 ton).