“Now, with this standard in our minds we look over the face of the land and behold it covered with rubbish.
“It is curious to observe how ingenious toolmakers have generally been in trying to avoid this quality of strength, and how deceptive an appearance in this respect many tools present.
“It is interesting also to note how little this quality of solidity adds to the cost of castings. The addition is merely so much more pig-iron and really not that, because in the stove-plate style the forms are more complicated, the patterns more expensive and frail, and the cost of molding is greater. But what signifies even a considerable increase in the first cost of a tool that in daily use is to perform the work of many and is to place its possessor on a mechanical eminence?
“It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into details, interesting and important as these are, but to draw attention to the subject in a general way. The improvement observed quite recently in this respect, as well as in other points of tool construction, is highly gratifying and encourages the expectation of still further and more general progress.”
The following summer I employed some of my leisure time in making the plans for a couple of machine tools. One of these was a double-drilling machine for boring the boxes of connecting-rods, there being then no such machine in existence to my knowledge. I had been planning such a machine in my mind as long ago as when I was in the works of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., in Manchester, England, in 1864-5. This tool was designed first to bore the two boxes simultaneously and rapidly, and, secondly, to bore them with absolute accuracy in their distance apart and in the intersection by their axes of the axis of the rod at right angles in the same plane, and all this without measurement or setting out or the possibility of error. The other tool was comparatively a small affair. I utilized an old milling-machine for facing simultaneously the opposite sides of nuts and taking the roughing and finishing cuts at the same time. The ends of the nuts were first faced on a special mandrel which insured their being normal to the axis of the thread. A string of these nuts was then threaded on a mandrel fitting the top of their threads and some 15 or 18 inches long, on which they were held against a hardened collar, the diameter of which was equal to the distance between their opposite finished faces. The cutting tools were set in two disks about 12 inches in diameter; they were set about an inch apart alternately in two circles, one about one eighth of an inch inside the other, and were held in position by set-screws in the periphery. The cutters in the outer circles did the roughing; those in the inner circles were set projecting about 0.001 of an inch beyond the roughing tools and finished the surfaces. The mandrel was set between centers, and the string of nuts was supported from the table at the middle of its length. The nuts were secured in position by a dividing plate on the forward center-bearing. What was done with the two drawings I will state presently.
My success, as already related, came so swiftly and completely after six months of anxiety as to be almost overwhelming. The more I thought about it the more ecstatic I became; all my disasters had been of a nature the effect of which time would soon efface. I was full of high anticipations, I could see no cloud in the sky; I awakened to my old zeal and energy and set myself eagerly to the work of providing new equipment, unable to realize the real helplessness of my position. Little did I dream that I was already doomed to drink to its dregs the bitter cup of responsibility without authority. That story will come soon enough; now I will ask the reader to accompany me in my work of filling the shop with new tools.
My principal orders were sent to my old friends, Smith & Coventry, in England. Among others I sent one for my double-drilling machine with the drawings. I received a reply from them stating that they had just furnished a similar machine to the firm of Hick, Hargreaves & Company, the eminent engine-builders of Bolton, and that they thought I would prefer their design for this machine, of which they sent a blue print, to my own. I should think I did prefer it; it was simply wonderful. It presented one feature of especial interest, which was that the two drills were driven independently and when not employed on connecting-rods could be applied to any other drilling work. So I ordered that tool, and its work fully justified my expectations. I ordered from them several planers, the largest one passing a body five feet square. The planers they sent me had two novel features which filled me with admiration. The tables were provided with broad, flat shoes running on corresponding flat guides, the sideways wear being taken up by an adjustable gib on one side. This construction enables the bearing surfaces to be made one true plane from end to end, making cross-wind impossible. The next feature by which these planers were distinguished was the mode of lubricating these surfaces. Each guide was provided in the middle of its length with an oil-well which was a large square box, formed in the casting. In the middle of this box was a small rod on which two levers were pivoted, the arms of which were of equal length. At one end these arms carried a roller, and at the other end a weight considerably heavier than the roller. The roller was thus kept up against the under side of the shoe, while its lower side ran in the oil; thus the lubrication was effected by the revolution of this roller, which needed to be only one half the width of the face lubricated; this was found to be the perfection of lubrication. The tables were very stiff and were provided only with T slots from end to end for holding the work.
I built a one-story addition to the erecting-floor, about 40×100 feet, occupying a space which had before been used mostly as a stable. I divided this into two bays by columns, and provided each bay with an overhead traveler of about five tons capacity, worked by rope loops hanging to the floor. These were also made for me by Smith & Coventry.
I ordered from Mr. Moore, of Philadelphia, one or two of the heavy and powerful lathes built by him for turning chilled rolls. I also ordered a six-foot square planer from the Hewes & Phillips Iron Works in Newark, which they made expressly heavy, having become infected with my ideas on that subject. From Pratt & Whitney I ordered one large lathe and one or two small planers, and other tools from several other American makers.
In one instance only I was disappointed; that was the case of a 12-foot horizontal turning and boring machine. On examining the blue-prints which were sent me at my request, I was struck with the lightness of the table, and conditioned my order on this being made twice as heavy, which was done. If I had made the same requirement for every other part of the machine, I should have done a good thing for both the builders and myself. The table ran on a circular track, which was superbly designed. This track consisted of a circular trough perhaps 8 or 10 inches wide, and in the middle of it a bearing surface for the table, raised perhaps half an inch above the bottom of the trough and half an inch lower than its sides. This bearing surface was about 6 inches wide and was intersected by diagonal grooves about a foot apart. Oil could stand in this trough above the level of the bearing surfaces. I made a little improvement on the method of supplying the oil. As sent, a dose of oil was poured through a hole in the table, which was filled with a screw plug when not required to be used. I screwed a plug into that hole to stay, and drilled a hole in the bottom of the trough, in which I screwed a ³⁄₈-inch pipe that I carried under the bottom of the machine, and up behind one of the uprights to a higher level, and in the end of this pipe I screwed a sight-feed oil-cup. I provided a drain-pipe, which would maintain the oil in the trough at the desired level, while it was fed to the trough continually, drop by drop, as required. This table came with an imperfectly finished bearing surface. I set several men at work to bed these surfaces properly, and did a fine job of scraping on them. When it was finished, I pulled the table around with one hand, it floating dry on the air caught between the two surfaces. When we came to use the tool it chattered, and would do so however light the cut we were taking; every part of it was too light and vibrated, except the table. After all, it was the best tool of this kind and size that I could have got in this country. If made of proper strength I should have been able to use four cutting tools in the work, each leaving a perfectly smooth surface; but that was a degree of strength and usefulness that builders at that time had not dreamed of.