Inventions in the Century

by William Henry Doolittle

The ground-work now being laid, the century advanced into a region of invention in tools and machinery for wood-working of every description, far beyond the wildest dreams of all former carpenters and joiners. Not only were the machines themselves invented, but they gave rise in turn to a host of inventions in metal-working for making them.

In the same line of inventions there appeared in the first decade of the century one of the most ingenious of men, and a most fitting type of that great class of Yankee inventors who have carved their way to renown with all implements, from the jack-knife to the electrically-driven universal shaping machine.

Thomas Blanchard, born in Massachusetts in 1788, while a boy, was accustomed to astonish his companions by the miniature wind-wheels and water-wheels that he whittled out with his knife. While attending the parties of young people who gathered on winter evenings at different homes in the country to pare apples, the idea of a paring machine occurred to him, and when only thirteen years of age, he invented and made the first apple-paring machine, with which more apples could be pared in a given time than any twelve of his girl acquaintances could pare with a knife.

At eighteen, while working in a shop, driving the heads down on tacks, on an anvil, with a hammer, he invented the first tack-forming machine, which, when perfected by him, made five hundred tacks a minute, and which has never since been improved in principle. He improved the steam engine, and invented one of the first envelope machines. He made the first metal lathe for cutting out the butts of gun-barrels. But his greatest triumphs were in wood-working machinery.

Challenged to make a machine that would make a gun stock, always before that time regarded an impossible task, its every part being so irregular in form, he secluded himself in his workshop for six months, and after constant labour and experiments he at the end of that time had produced a machine that more than astonished the entire world, and which worked a revolution in the making of all irregular forms from wood. This was in 1819. This machine would not only make a perfect gun-stock, but shoe lasts, and ships’ tackle-blocks, axe-handles, and a multitude of irregular-shaped blocks which before had always required the most expert hand operatives to produce. This machine became the subject of parliamentary inquiry on the part of England, and so great were the doubts concerning it, that successive commissions were appointed to examine and report upon it. Finally the English government ordered eight or ten of such machines for the making of gun-stocks for its army, and paid Blanchard about $40,000 for them. He was once jestingly asked at the navy department at Washington if he could turn a seventy-four? He at once replied, “Yes, if you will furnish me the block.” Of course infringers appeared, but he maintained his rights and title as first and original inventor after the most searching trials in court.

The generic idea of Blanchard’s lathe for turning irregular forms consists in the use of a pattern of the device which is to be shaped from the rough material, placing such pattern in a lathe, alongside of the rough block, and having a guide wheel which has an arm having cutters, and which guide follows all the lines of the pattern, and which cutters, extending to the rough material, chip it away to the depth and in the direction imparted by the pattern lines to the guide, thus producing from the rough block a perfect representation of the pattern.

In the midst of his studies in the construction of his inventions Blanchard’s attention was drawn to the operations of a boring worm upon an old oak log. Closely examining and watching the same by the aid of a microscope, he gained valuable ideas from the work of his humble teacher, which he incorporated into his new cutting and boring machines.

His series of machines in gun-making were designed to make and shape automatically every part of the gun, whether of wood or metal. His machines, and subsequent improvements by others, for boring, mortising and turning, display wonderful ingenuity. A modern mortising machine, for instance, is adapted to quickly and accurately cut a square or oblong hole to any desired depth, width, and length by cutting blades; to automatically reciprocate the cutters both vertically and horizontally in order to cut the mortise, both as to length and depth, at one time, and to automatically withdraw the cutters when they have finished cutting the mortise. They are provided with simple means for setting and feeding the cutters to do this work, and while giving the cutters a positive action, ample clearance is provided for the removal of the chips as fast as they are cut.

From what such inventions will produce in the way of complicated and ornamental workmanship we may conclude that it is a law of invention that whatever can be made by hand may be made by a machine, and made better.

Carving Machines made their appearance early in the century. In 1800 a Mr. Watt of London produced one, on which he carved medallions and figures in ivory and ebony. Also subsequently, John Hawkins of the same city, and a Mr. Cheverton, invented machines for the same purpose. Another Englishman, Braithwaite, in 1840, invented a most attractive carving process in which, instead of cutting tools, he employed burning as his agent. Heated casts of previously carved models were pressed into or on to wet wood, and the charcoal surfaces then brushed off with hard brushes.