Local Hero

[Tin Falcon]

Who is your local hero when it comes to industrial technology ? Someone who lived in your area and was an inventor or owned a business that contributed to or advanced machining or manufacturing or other industrial technology.
MY local hero is Oberlin Smith .His shop was about 15 miles from where I grew up.

http://oberlinsmith.org/Ferracute/ferracute.html

The Ferracute manufactured metal forming presses. Henry ford was one of there biggest customers. while Thomas Edison was developing the phonograph Oberlin smith was filing a patent for magnetic recording.

MR smith wrote a book on the press working of metal
http://archive.org/details/pressworkingmet03smitgoog

There is a pretty good book written by a local author Ferracute The history of an american enterprise. by Arthur Cox & Thomas Malim .
I have had the privilege of meeting with Mr cox in my home and have an autographed copy of the book.
the book is available on line . Unfortunately it is out of print and sells for $75.00 and up from what I have seen

and who is YOUR local hero.

Tin

 

[goldstar31]

I think that I have two. One is George Stephenson 1781-1848
and the other is Charles Algernon Parsons 1854-1931
Both lived within a couple of miles from where I was born.

Neither needs much more embellishment from me.---------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd deliberately omitted people like Lord William Armstrong of Cragside and Newcastle and Armstrongs Factory ( And the Blaydon Races) because he lived a whole 7 miles away from me. Again, Timothy Hackworth of Shildon and 'sans Pareil' fame was all of perhaps 30 or 40 miles away. Shildon was where my great grandfather and grandfather lived- and where they were blacksmiths. Did they work for Hackworth? I simply don't know. But Hackworth was born in the same tiny village that George Stephenson was born and that was Wylam on the Tyne.
Then William Hedley comes in with Puffing Billy and another connection with 'Canny Wylam on the Tyne' Somehow, somewhere someone asked me about Hedley and the Atkinson's. The history is more than hazy but there is a local connection.

It all became a bit of a joke when someone discovered a connection with a certain graduate electrical engineer- called 'Mr Bean'
I'll leave it at that

Norman Atkinson

 

[skyline1]

Hi All

Here are a couple of mine Edwin Beard Budding inventor of the lawnmower (and the adjustable spanner apparently, though there is some disagreement about this) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Beard_Budding

And of course Isambard Kingdom Brunel http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAbrunel.htm
Although mostly associated with Bristol he was apparently born In my father's home town of Portsmouth. so a double local link in a way. His feats speak for themselves and are still being used now.

Regards Mark

 

[mwilkes]

Mine's William Dargan, who built the dublin-kingstown railway in 1834 - one of the earliest commuter trains

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Kingstown_Railway

 

[Propforward]

OK,

Not local to me, (But I'm from the UK, and I did a project about this at school when I was 16) but since the famous figures from history are rightfully being mentioned, I am not going to sit back and let Richard Trevithick, the actual inventor of the high pressure steam engine go unmentioned.

Actually, the Chinese invented the steam engine a long long time before that, but at the time regarded it as a novelty with no practical purpose. Trevithick invented it for use in the Cornish tin mines, and also invented the locomotive, but he was not a good businessmen, and fell foul of that ultimately.

From Wikipedia:

Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall, England. Born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from a young age. The son of a mining captain, he performed poorly in school, but went on to be an early pioneer in steam-powered rail. His most significant contribution was to the development of the first high pressure steam engine, he also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive. On 21 February 1804 the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place as Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales.

Turning his interests abroad, Trevithick also worked as a mining consultant in Peru and later explored parts of Costa Rica. Throughout his professional career, he went through many ups and downs, and at one point faced financial ruin, also suffering from the strong rivalry of many mining and steam engineers of the day. During the prime of his career, he was a well-respected and known figure in mining and engineering, but near the end of his life and after he fell out of the public eye. Today, his legacy is mostly known to the mining, engineering, and railway circles.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Trevithick

Coalbrookdale Locomotive:

 

[terrywerm]

I would have to add someone that most of you have never heard of, Joseph Renshaw Brown, 1805-1870. During the 1850’s and up to the time of his death, he was developing a steam wagon to be used to haul supply wagon trains between Henderson, Minnesota and Fort Ridgely, near Fairfax, Minnesota. In order to make the most sense of this, I will give a little background information first.

Fort Ridgely was located on the frontier at that time and settlement was beginning in the area. The fort itself was located on a bluff that overlooked the Minnesota River valley, but the river was generally not navigable by steamboat this far upstream. Supplies were typically brought upriver from Fort Snelling by steamboat, usually to the river town of Henderson, then went overland to the fort. Mr. Brown saw the need for a dependable means of transportation across the prairie and began to develop his machine which he called “Mazomanie” (photo below). It was built in New York, then shipped in pieces to Minnesota by ship and riverboat. On its maiden voyage to the fort in 1859, it sank in the mud of Three Mile Creek and became hopelessly mired. A number of attempts were made to recover it, but they eventually removed the engine and boiler from the machine. It is not known what became of the pieces of the machine, and it has been lost to time. He built a second machine in 1862, which he planned for use between Omaha and the Colorado gold fields. This machine failed with a broken crankshaft about 5 miles into its first trip.

Mr. Brown was instrumental in a number of other pioneering ventures in Minnesota, including logging, acting as Indian agent, and newspaper publishing, and also played a role in the Dakota uprising of 1862. He died in New York City in 1870 while there working on a third version of his steam wagon. He was returned to Henderson where he was buried.

 

[Tin Falcon]

I am amazed that many of the common names that I grew up with associated with tools were also Philadelphia names.

Henry Diston: blade smith inventor manufacturer of the Diston saw owned the keystone saw works.

http://www.dmgnet.com/family/history.htm

http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/100anniversary.html


The hand saws of my younger years were diston and the hammers and axes were Plumb another Philadelphia company.

http://www.workshopoftheworld.com/richmond_bridesburg/plumb.html

http://yesteryearstools.com/Yesteryears%20Tools/Plumb%20Co..html
Tin falcon

 

[Herbiev]

I got a couple here in Oz. the Victa peach tin rotary lawn mower http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victa_lawn_mower and about five miles away the Hills clothes line. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_Hoist. Not sure if either is widespread in the USA but I know both were exported to several overseas countries

 

[loggerhogger]

Actually I have two. The first is George Corliss just because ilove Corliss engines, and the other is Henery Ford because he dared to pay his workers a living wage at a time when that was not considered the proper thing to do.

 

[Niceonetidy]

Isombard kingdom brunel, for me,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel

 

[Rivergypsy]

Maudslay for me, but Brunel, Telford, Trevithick and Stephenson following closely. Who tried to standardise threads?!

 

[Tin Falcon]

Welch's Grape juice started in my home town



Meet the world's leading marketer of delicious Concord and Niagara grape-based products.

The story of Welch's began in 1869 in Vineland, New Jersey – when physician and dentist Thomas Bramwell Welch and his son Charles processed the first bottles of "unfermented wine" to use during their church's communion service.
Today Welch's is the world's leading marketer of Concord and Niagara-based grape products – with over 400 items ranging from refrigerated juices and sparkling juice cocktails to jams, jellies and a variety of single-serve products in all shapes and sizes. Our headquarters is in Concord, Massachusetts – birthplace of the Concord grape. Our products are sold throughout the U.S. and in more than 35 countries and territories around the world.

Tin

 

[goldstar31]

First, I thought way off topic-- and thought again!

Earlier, I wrote about some of the greats in the North East of England and then I thought about - their workers. You know the sort of thing- you and me- the common people with everyday problems.

Well, they've just unearthed a pit of bodies that were dumped in London during the Plague. Forget Richard- Crookback- the Third and 'a horse a horse, my kingdom for a horse' fellow. Merely clean drinking water and freedom from all the waterborne diseases that decimated - us.

I haven't gone off topic because the guy that transformed 3 miles of factories along the banks of the River Tyne- indeed Armstrong's factories and so designed streets that led down to the factories - but with a drinking tap at the end of each street. Indeed, John Dobson built a couple of railway stations, overhauled a cathedral, designed a prison and restored a castle- that Alice in Wonderland's family came from( no joke)
But the Industrial Revolution- in the North East of England any way- came from nothing more than drinking fresh water that a gardener's son provided.

There's plaque to John Dobson's wonderful buildings here in Newcastle but none to tap water. His surviving relative unveiled the plaque. Oddly, she, too, was involved with water but this time it was fluorided to minimise tooth decay.

Which reminds me?

 

[Woodster]

Who tried to standardise threads?!

That would Joseph Whitworth. He also discovered the perfect rotation for a bullet exiting a gun barrel and developed a hexagonal bullet and barrel combination that was far more accurate than any predecessors. Nowadays barrels are rifled to the same effect.
Slightly off topic, but still a local hero in my neck of the woods, is Sir Astley Paston Cooper. He opened the worlds first 'Cottage Hospital' about 3 miles from my house. The building is still there and is also famous for some medieval wall paintings that were found under about 30 layers of wall paper.
Also, about 1/2 a mile away is the site of the worlds first continuous paper mill. It was originally built buy John Dickinson and was a major employer in the area for many years. The mill housed the first Fourdrinier paper making Machine. There is still one in operation today, as well as a museum dedicated to paper making. If you haven't heard of John Dickinson, you will almost certainly have used some of his products, most famously, Basildon Bond paper and envelopes.

 

[Tin Falcon]

William Sellers (1824-1905) of Philadelphia was inspired by Great Britain's adoption of a comprehensive system of screw threads promulgated in 1841 by that nation's leading maker of machine tools, Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887). He understood the value of Whitworth's standard, a clear improvement over the various "mongrel" threads that U.S. machinery makers used, but Sellers decided to improve upon Whitworth's approach, creating a system of threads adapted to U.S. needs.

In April 1864 Sellers laid out his proposed system of screw threads in a paper delivered at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. Sellers simplified Whitworth's design by adopting a thread profile of 60 degrees (versus 55 degrees), which was easier for ordinary mechanics and machinists to cut. In addition to this profile, Sellers offered systematic approaches to thread pitch (the number of threads per inch), form, and depth, as well as rules to proportion hex nuts — for each fractional size from 1/4-inch to 6-inch diameter bolts.

Sellers was president of The Franklin Institute, America's leading forum for developing the art and science of mechanical engineering. On December 15, 1864, a special committee of the Institute endorsed the Sellers or Franklin Institute threads. To aid their adoption throughout the United States, the Institute lobbied the U.S. Army, Navy (whose Bureau of Steam Engineering was a leading mechanical innovator), and the master mechanics of America's largest railroads.

By the 1880s, the new system of standard screw threads became widespread as machines with interchangeable parts, from typewriters to locomotives, flooded the national economy. This rationally elegant yet simple system of fasteners boosted productivity, simplified machinery repairs, and united diverse machine makers and users from coast to coast. They are still widely used, known as the United States Standard Screw Threads.

Tin

 

[Brian Rupnow]

My hero is my uncle Jimmy. He is the guy who showed me what happened when I held the sparkplug wire and he pulled the starter cord on the lawnmower. He is the guy who borrowed my grandpa's little oilcan full of kerosene for starting fire in the kitchen stove and used it filled with Naptha to prime an engine and then put it back but forgot to drain the Naptha out. Grandpa was not impressed!! It was him that used to take my aunt Betty's Coleman iron outside onto a stump to light it for her on ironing day---talk about fire breathing dragons!!! WOW!! He used Naptha in his Zippo lighter because it was cheaper than lighter fluid. (He had no hair on his forearms). He's the fellow who was given a 1937 Fargo halfton with a seized engine. Towed it down the road at 40 miles an hour and then popped the clutch in high gear.---Unsiezed the engine, but bent every valve stem. Nonplussed, he took the valves out, and straightened them with a 5 pound hammer on a hardwood block. The truck ran good but you could hear him coming from 3 miles away. Yes, he was the guy with the Hilman car that had a unibody---no frame---one of the first. Hit a big pothole and the car bent in half. Went down in the woods, cut two ironwood poles with a camber in them, jacked the car up in the center, and haywired the poles to the floor pan every 3" full length of the body and drove the car another two years.He showed me my first hit and miss engine and explained how it worked. He let me help him change engines in an old Dodge car, outside in January at 30 below zero, with a small woodfire nearby to warm our fingers when we couldn't feel them any more to pick up a bolt. He taught me to chord on a steel guitar. He taught me how to play the fiddle. He gave me my first drink of whiskey. He showed me how, when you wanted to sell a car with a noisy rearend or a slipping clutch from a bad rear main seal that a handfull of hardwood ashes would firm up the clutch or quiet the noisy rearend long enough to sell it to some poor fool. He showed me my first ever girly magazine. He showed me how, by reading the sparkplugs you could diagnose all kinds of things about an engine. He gave me the copper coil for my first still. He always told his sister (my mother) what a great, smart, Christian, well mannered kid I was (as he winked at me over mothers shoulder. He was my hero, and always will be. He has been gone for many years now, but will live on as my hero as long as I still draw breath,---Brian

 

[rodw]

Brian, anybody who gives away a copper coil for a still deserves to be a hero!

 

[rcfreak177]

Ralph Sarich would have to be my local hero,

Born here in Perth and inventor of the orbital engine. As most of us guys are fanatical about engines I am sure most of you will be aware of the concept, not only engines but this guy has had a major impact on our agriculture scene with the invention of several machines within the industry.

Here is a bit about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Sarich