Return to America. Disappointment. My Shop. The Colt Armory Engine
designed by Mr. Richards. Appearance of Mr. Goodfellow. My Surface
Plate Work. Formation of a Company.
In June, 1868, having completed my preparations, I bade what has proven
to be a long good-by to England, and buoyant with anticipations turned
my face homeward. During the voyage my mind dwelt constantly on the
bright career for which it clearly appeared that my experience in
England was the fit preparation, and on my projected work, every detail
of which I revolved over and over in imagination.
The first thing after I got home I made an important discovery, one of
that kind which generally men have to make for themselves. My discovery
was this: Put not your trust in riches, especially when they belong
to another man. Mr. Hope had made the blunder of relying on a single
capitalist. I had expected to find at least half-a-dozen subscribers
to a capital of not less than $100,000. His single financial associate
and reliance was a gentleman of wealth, retired from active business,
and whom I introduce to the reader as Mr. Smith. Under his direction
Mr. Hope had written to me the invitation and promise to which I have
already referred. The wealth and the ideas of Mr. Smith seemed to be
in inverse proportion to each other. The greatness of the former was
represented by the smallness of the latter. He entered with earnestness
and energy into our work--according to his own plans. He paid no regard
to my suggestions, and instead of heeding my request to postpone
definite action until my return he hurried his scheme to completion
so that I would find everything settled beyond the possibility of my
interference.
In Harlem, then a somewhat remote and quite dead suburb of New York, on
Fourth Avenue between 130th and 131st streets, within a block or two of
the termination of the avenue on the Harlem River, he found a little
abandoned foundry, about 40 feet square, with a lean-to in the rear,
used for cleaning castings. It had been dismantled and idle for several
years, never, of course, had a floor, and the windows were broken. This
he hailed as the very place he wanted, and at once leased it for five
years at a small rent, with the ground belonging to it, extending from
130th to 131st Street, 200 feet front by 100 feet deep, and vacant,
except this building and a little office, 10×15 feet, on the upper
corner.
He then turned his attention to providing the “ample capital.” My
governor shop on West Thirteenth Street had during my long absence
been run quite successfully by my faithful foreman, Nelson Aldrich.
Mr. Smith planned to remove this shop to Harlem, and to furnish Mr.
Allen money enough to enable him to enter into an equal partnership
with me, adding the engine business to my governor manufacture.
Everything in my shop was appraised at the round sum of $10,000, and
this magnificent amount, as he regarded it, he advanced to Mr. Allen
_as a loan_. Mr. Allen had put his savings of several years into a
little home in Tremont, a village on the line of the railroad, some
three or four miles above the Harlem River. This place had cost him
$2500. Mr. Smith told Mr. Allen that he must secure him the repayment
of this loan, so far as he could do so, by the mortgage of his house
and lot. This demand caused Mr. Allen great distress and half killed
his wife. Mr. Smith was inexorable--no mortgage, no money. Mr. Allen
thought of a scheme for outwitting him, and the mortgage was executed
and the money paid over. He applied this first to making the premises
habitable, laying a floor and putting a floor above, which would give a
story under the roof, and the beams of which would carry the shafting
for driving the tools. He repaired the broken windows and put windows
in the front gable to light the new upper story, put on a new roof,
installed a portable engine and boiler, and equipped a little smith
shop in the lean-to. My tools, etc., were then moved into their new
quarters. These tools were all small. In order to make engines some
larger ones would be needed. Mr. Allen procured from the firm of Hewes
& Phillips, Newark, N. J., a very good planer, large enough to pass
work 4 feet wide and high, and a 20-inch lathe. When this installation
was completed, Mr. Allen had expended $7500. Then he stopped making
purchases and said nothing. The work of my governor manufacture was
resumed, and nothing more attempted. This was the state of affairs that
stared me in the face on my return. The shop had been running about a
fortnight. Mr. Smith told me he had supplied all the money he expected
to. Mr. Allen said he had not obliged himself to put all the money
loaned him into the business, and the amount for which he had mortgaged
his house was in a safe place, where it could be got when wanted to pay
off that mortgage.
I was stupefied. As I began to realize my utter helplessness, I broke
down entirely. What rational motive could any man have had in getting
me home and leaving me powerless to do anything? Had I imagined the
character of his plans I should have remained in England, signed
anything that Mr. Whitworth wanted me to, and trusted Providence and
Mr. Hoyle for the result. The absurdity of the case presented itself to
me sometimes in its humiliating and sometimes in its ludicrous aspect,
according to my mood. After a while I saw that I must reconcile myself
to the situation, and see what could be done under the circumstances.
We could only do a little business in making small non-condensing
engines. Not more than from 15 to 20 men could work in the shop. As
for facilities for handling machinery, there were none. We yet needed
several expensive tools. We had to make patterns; we must have money
to run the place until returns came in. I laid the matter before Mr.
Smith. First of all, that mortgage must be discharged; I would not
stir till that was done. He had overreached himself. I rejoiced that
Mr. Allen had got the better of him. It would be idle to set about the
business without at least $10,000 additional capital; this I finally
got, and, with the advance to Mr. Allen, made free from interest, by
assigning the entire indicator patents to Mr. Smith and Mr. Hope. As
it turned out, we bought that money at an enormous price; but we did
not know this at the time. We must have money and this was the only way
to get it. We congratulated ourselves that by any sacrifice we had
secured the sum of $20,000 and without the burden of interest.
Now I took heart and set at work in earnest, feeling sure that I could
soon bring the engine into a position that would command the means
required to do it justice. I ordered from Smith & Coventry a stationary
drilling machine, a 6-inch slotting machine, a bolt-threading machine,
and a set of cylindrical gauges, and had them all in place by the
time we were ready to use them. This bolt-threading machine was a
wonder, and has not been surpassed since. The rod was fed through a
hollow spindle, seized in the jaws of a self-centering chuck, and the
projecting end finished. The threading dies were backed by eccentric
wedges in a solid ring, which was turned out of the way during the
sliding operation. These were closed or opened by a lever which carried
a stud moving in a circular slot. This stud was brought up to a stop,
which could be set to cut threads of any depth. The threads were
finished in a single motion. For standing bolts, we threaded one end,
so that it screwed hard into its seat, and by moving the stop a trifle
the threads on the other end were cut deeper, so that the nuts turned
on it more easily. The rapidity, uniformity and precision with which
this was done could not be surpassed.
Smith & Coventry had lately commenced the manufacture of cylindrical
gauges, of which up to that time Mr. Whitworth had had the monopoly.
Flat gauges did not then exist. The above tools were almost incredibly
superior to those then made in this country. I was anxious for one of
their radial drills, but had no place to set it. I adopted the Franklin
Institute screw-thread, and obtained a set of hobs from William Sellers
& Co. I equipped our little office to accommodate one draftsman besides
myself, and soon had a good man at work, engaged mostly in preparing
drawings from the tracings I had brought from England. The story over
the shop, in the middle half of which a man could stand upright, was
made a pattern shop, and two patternmakers were soon at work there.
They found the shop very hot. The roof was covered with paper and
tar. I could not bear my hand on the under side of the roof boards. I
whitewashed the roof, making the whitewash rainproof, and this heat
entirely disappeared.
I have borne in mind this interesting result, the complete prevention
of heat absorption by changing the color of the surface to one
absolutely white; and am now proposing a similar change in brick boiler
settings and chimneys, using white enameled tiles, which also prevent
percolation of the external air.
I will improve the time while we are waiting for this preparatory
work to be finished by telling of two Allen engines already running
and made in the United States. The first one had been made by my old
friend Mr. Richards, the inventor of the indicator. He was at that time
the engineer of the Colt Armory in Hartford. They built a new shop
four stories in height and 500 feet long. Mr. Richards designed and
arranged the power in this shop and its transmission. He adopted the
Allen engine, with which he alone in this country was familiar. I have
written to Professor Richards for a description of these engines and
received the following reply:
“227 Edwards St., New Haven, Ct.
“October 9, 1903.
“_Dear Mr. Porter_:
“In a sort of way you rather stole a march on me, by writing me
before I had written to you, for it had been my intention for a
number of weeks to write, thanking you for the frequent mention of my
name in your ‘Reminiscences’ and for the kindly way in which you have
spoken of me. Your papers have interested me greatly and bring back
recollections of times which were for me very happy, when I first
made your acquaintance and afterwards enjoyed the intimacy which grew
up.
“My neglect to write came from my almost unsurmountable repugnance to
letter writing, which, if anything, grows yearly.
“I am as nervous as usual, but in excellent strength, and by putting
sulphur in my boots (and wearing the boots) am apparently pretty much
cured of rheumatism. My students and I get along together very well;
there are, however, so many of them now that I feel quite overwhelmed
at times. About fifty men come to my classes, and in my department
there are in all about one hundred and forty.
“Now for the Colt’s Armory engines. There are two pairs in line
with each other, vertical engines, Porter-Allen type, in the second
story and in the middle of the building, which is 500 feet long. The
line shaft, stretching 250 feet each way from the engines, forms an
extension of the engine crank-shaft. Between the engines are pulleys
driving the first-story line shaft beneath them and the third-story
line above. All 500 feet long. Cylinder bore, 12¹⁄₂ inches; stroke,
24 inches; speed, 130 revolutions per minute.
“The dimensions and general form of the running gear were made from
drawings sent to me by you. The valve-gear differs only in divorcing
the exhaust valves from the steam valves by placing them on the
opposite side of the cylinder and driving them from a separate
eccentric on that side, and not from the link.
“The framing for each engine of a pair is like a Porter bed standing
on end with two posts forming what would be the lower part of the bed
if it were lying down. There are therefore eight posts in the two
pairs of engines, which form the second-story columns of the framing
of the building, and the whole framing of the engines makes an
integral part of the building construction, being rigidly connected
with the beams of the fireproof flooring of all three floors. The
building is four stories high.
“The engines were started in 1867. They have been in continuous
service ever since. Ten or twelve years ago I had an opportunity to
measure the thickness of the crowns of the crank-pin boxes. They did
not differ perceptibly from the thickness marked on the drawing from
which they were made. Knowing the accuracy with which the work was
made to correspond with the drawings (gun-shop work), I am confident
that the wear of the box after twenty-six years of service had not
amounted to five one-thousandths of an inch. All the parts give
evidence of an almost indefinite durability.
“All the work except that on the governors was done in the shops of
the Colt company. The beds were cast in the foundry of one of the
distinguished old engine-builders of Hartford, who felt it his duty
to call on General Franklin, the general manager of the company,
to warn him that if Richards were permitted to put a number of 75
horse-power engines running at 100 revolutions per minute, in the
second story of a great building like the armory, disaster was
certain. The building would be shaken so terribly. The fact is that
any one standing on the third floor directly over the cranks would
not know, from the movement of the floor or from sound, that the
engines were running. The usual steam pressure carried when I was in
the armory was from 50 to 60 pounds. The boilers then were large, of
the drop-flue type.
[Illustration: Card from Allen Engine in Colt’s Armory.]
“Enclosed is a card taken in 1878 with the ‘pantographic’ indicator,
for which a silver medal was awarded me at Paris in that year. The
particular indicator with which this card was taken is in the Museum
of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers.
“Very sincerely yours,
“C. B. RICHARDS.”
This bold and successful piece of engineering would have made easy the
introduction of these engines in New England.
[Illustration: Professor CHARLES B. RICHARDS]
The second engine had been built by a prominent iron works in New
York, from Mr. Allen’s drawings, for a paint mill in South Brooklyn.
Both names I have forgotten. Mr. Allen took me to see this engine
soon after I came home. It had then been running for a year or more,
and had given high satisfaction. Its local influence was found quite
valuable to us. This engine is memorable for the following reason: Ten
years afterwards, while building engines in Newark, I received from
Mr. Mathieson, manager of the National Tube Works in McKeesport, Pa.,
a letter containing an invitation to make him a tender for two large
Allen engines, the largest I had yet attempted, and which resulted
in my building these engines for him. After they were successfully
running, Mr. Mathieson told me how he came to write me. He said he was
the superintendent of the iron works in New York in which Mr. Allen
had this engine built, and was very much impressed by its advantages,
especially after he saw it in operation; and in planning this mill
these engines seemed to be just what he wanted.
[Illustration: Sectional and Front Elevations of One of the Two Pairs
of Porter-Allen Engines in the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn.]
[Illustration: Porter-Allen Engines in the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn.
Front View]
[Illustration: Porter-Allen Engines in the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn.
Rear View]
[Illustration: Sectional and Side Elevations of One of the Two Pairs of
Porter-Allen Engines in the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn.]
In preparing for the engine manufacture one of my first aims was
the production of true surface plates for finishing my guide-bars,
cross-heads, valves, and seats, and cylinder and steam-chest joints,
all of which I made steam-tight scraped joints requiring no packing.
This was a new departure in steam-engine work in this country. I
fancied myself an expert in the art, but found out that there was
one degree at least that I had not taken. I designed several sizes
of surface plates, intended primarily to fit the guide-bars of the
engines, and also straight edges 6 feet in length by 2¹⁄₂ inches wide.
These are represented in the accompanying cuts.
[Illustration: Surface Plates Designed by Mr. Porter.]
I found still working in my governor shop a man named Meyers. He was
the best fitter I ever had; had fitted every governor made in my shop,
the little engine or the parts of it that I took to England, and long
before had fitted my stone-cutting machine in Mr. Banks’ shop. This
man I taught all I knew about the art of producing true planes by the
system of scraping, and he produced surface plates and straight edges
that seemed to me quite perfect.
The following incident illustrates the general intelligence on this
subject at that time among skilled workmen in this country. As I was
inspecting Mr. Meyers’ first work in scraping, my foreman came along,
and after observing it quite a while remarked, “It is my opinion you
will never make a proper job of that, till you put it on the planer and
take a light cut over it.”
One day, not long after we started, George Goodfellow walked into my
shop. He had come from the Whitworth works, had been foreman there of
the upstairs room in which most of the fine scraping on their tools
was done. I had a slight acquaintance with him, but could not remember
having been in his room but once, and then only for a minute or two. He
had become disgusted with Mr. Widdowson and the way things were going
on under his management, and had resigned his position and emigrated to
the United States; found out where I was hiding, I never learned how,
and applied to me for a job, which I was glad to give him. I cannot
imagine any greater contrast than between Mr. Goodfellow and every
other man I met in the Whitworth shops.
I had then on hand two orders for standard surface plates and straight
edges, one from the Colt Armory and one from Pratt & Whitney. Mr.
Meyers had just finished work on these when Mr. Goodfellow appeared. He
had not been at work in the shop but a day or two when he asked me if I
had got the cross-wind out of those straight edges.
I made him the ignorant answer that they were so narrow the matter
of cross-wind had not occurred to me as important, as our planer did
very true work. He said nothing, but pulled a hair out of his head and
laid it across a straight edge at its middle point. He then inverted
another straight edge on it and swung this on the hair as a pivot. It
swung in one direction freely, but in the other direction the corners
caught and it was revealed that the surfaces were spirals. I gave
him the job of taking out this twist. He was occupied about two days
in making the three interchangeable straight edges quite true. When
finished I tried them with great satisfaction, the test showing also
their absolute freedom from flexure. The first swing on the hair pivot
was in each direction as if the upper straight edge were hanging in the
air. As this was repeated back and forth, I felt the surfaces gradually
approaching each other, the same increasing resistance being felt in
each direction of the swing, and finally they were in complete contact.
What became of the hair I could not find out. This refinement of truth,
so easily attained and demonstrated when we know how, was of course
a necessity. I made the engines at that time with the steam-chest
separate from the cylinder; so two long steam joints had to be made
between cylinder, chest, and cover.
I fitted up these standards, both surface plates and straight edges,
with their edges scraped also to true planes and all their angles
absolute right angles. For this and other purposes I made two angle
plates, each face 8 inches square, with diagonal ribs. These were
scraped so that when the two were set on a surface plate, either
surface of one would come in complete contact with either surface of
the other, and also when one or the other was set on its edges. This
angle plate also is shown.
For our screw-thread work I made a pair of steel 60-degree standards,
the truth of which was demonstrated as follows: The outside gauge being
set up on a surface plate, the inside triangular block set on the
surface plate passed through the former in exact contact, whichever
angle was up and whichever side was presented. From the cylindrical
gauges of Smith & Coventry I made flat inside and outside gauges of
steel with faces hardened, reserving the former for reference only.
I had wondered why this was not done in England. Presume they have
learned the importance of it long ago.
We could not advertise--the fact is I was ashamed to; but we had as
many orders as we could take with our very limited means of production.
Indeed, we had frequent applications which called for engines too
large for us to consider them. We had some applications from parties
who were short of power, and on measuring their engines with the
indicator always found that we could supply their requirements by
putting in smaller engines. In one case I remember we put in an engine
of just one half the size, and requiring but one quarter the weight of
fly-wheel, of the one taken out, and gave them all the additional power
they wanted, and more uniform motion. This would seem an extravagant
statement were not its reasonableness proved by the experience of
makers of high-speed engines generally. Sometimes the indicator showed
ludicrous losses of pressure between boiler and engine.
On account of his familiarity with the requirements of more exact
construction, I made Mr. Goodfellow my foreman after he had been with
me a short time, and he proved to be the very man for the position.
He made all my engines in Harlem and afterwards in Newark, and I was
largely indebted to him for my success.
Before the close of our first year Mr. Smith proposed that our business
be transferred to a company, to which he would pay in a little
additional money, in consideration of which, and of his previous
advances to the business, he demanded a controlling interest in the
stock. I did not like the idea, but Mr. Hope and Mr. Allen favored it,
and I consented. So the company was incorporated. Mr. Smith was made
its president, and one of his sons was made secretary and treasurer. He
transferred to this son and also to another one qualifying shares of
his stock, and both were added to the board of directors, that making
six of us. The admirable way in which this machinery worked will appear
by and by.
Mr. Smith proceeded at once to get out a catalogue and build on the
vacant lot a new business office, of quite respectable size and two
stories high, finishing the second story for Mr. Goodfellow with his
family to live in. When this building was ready Mr. Smith installed
himself in the office and busied himself in meddling and dictating
about the business, impressing me with the great advantage of having
a thorough business man at the head of it. If I ventured any word on
this subject, I always received the sneering reply, “What do you know
about business?” The following incident in this connection may amuse
the reader as much as it did me. I may mention in the first place that
when, as already stated, he with Mr. Hope acquired the entire indicator
patents, of which he assumed the individual management and so I always
supposed had secured the larger part, the first thing he did was to
repudiate my agreement with Mr. Richards to pay to him 10 per cent. of
the receipts from the patents, this being a verbal agreement (as all
the transaction was), and so Mr. Richards never received another penny.
One morning Mr. Smith came into my office and said, “Do you know
that the license to Elliott Brothers to manufacture the indicators
has expired?” I had licensed them only for seven years, not knowing
whether or not they would prove satisfactory licensees. “Well,” said
I, “suppose it has?” “Would you let them go on without a license?”
he demanded; “that shows how much you know about business.” “If it
were my affair,” I replied, “I should not stir it up. I see every
reason for letting it alone. It is the business of the licensee, if
he feels unsafe, to apply for the extension of his license.” With a
contemptuous sneer Mr. Smith left me and immediately wrote Elliott
Brothers, reminding them that their license had expired and requesting
an answer by return mail to say if they wanted to renew it.
He received the answer that I knew he would, for what good business man
ever lets such an opening go by him? They said they were just on the
point of writing him that they did not wish to renew unless on very
different terms. By the contract they made with me they paid a royalty
of £2 on each indicator sold at retail, and £1 10 shillings on each one
sold at wholesale. The selling price was £8 10 shillings. They made a
large profit on extra springs, of which they sold a great number at 10
shillings each, and which cost them about 2 shillings. They wrote at
length on the difficulty of holding the market against the competition
of cheap indicators selling at £4 (which was just the competition
against which the indicator was at first introduced but which had
long before ceased to be serious) and closed by saying that if Mr.
Smith would agree to accept one half the former royalty, they would
themselves make a corresponding reduction in their profits and would
be able to put the indicators at a price that would probably make the
business satisfactory. Otherwise they would find themselves compelled
to discontinue the manufacture altogether, which they should do unless
they received an affirmative reply at once. Of course they got the
affirmative reply. Mr. Smith had no alternative. They never reduced the
selling price one penny. They had no competition during the life time
of the patent, and their sales were enormous. The amount of royalties
lost during the remaining seven years of the patent was certainly not
less than $35,000.
The following is a story with a moral. The moral is, working to gauges
is an excellent plan, providing the gauges are mixed with brains. No
manufacturing system is perfect that is not fool-proof. If a mistake is
possible it is generally made.
A company of English capitalists were spending a good deal of money on
the west coast of South America in building railroads into and over
the Andes. One of these roads was intended to reach a famous silver
mine, from which the Spaniards, two or three hundred years before, had
taken large quantities of the precious metal, but which had long ago
been drowned out and abandoned. The railroad was to take up pumping
machinery by which the mine could be cleared of water and to bring
down the ore in car-load lots. For some purpose or other they wanted
a stationary engine in those high altitudes, and their agent in this
country ordered one from me. I was having my fly-wheels and belt drums
cast by Mr. Ferguson, whose foundry was on 13th Street, west of Ninth
Avenue, some seven miles distant from my shop in Harlem. He had a
wheel-lathe in which I could have them turned and bored, and they were
bored to gauges and shipped direct to their destinations. This time I
had two wheels to be finished, so I sent the gauges with a tag attached
to each describing the wheel it was for, but neglected to go and make a
personal inspection of the work. Some months after I received a bitter
letter from South America, complaining that they found the wheel had
been bored half an inch smaller than the shaft, and that they had to
chip off a quarter of an inch all around the hole where the barometer
stood at 17 inches, and physical exertion was something to be avoided.
The case was somewhat relieved by the fact that I always cored out a
larger chamber in the middle of the hub for the purpose of getting
rid of a mass of metal which would cause the hub to cool too slowly,
finishing only a length of two inches at each end of the hub, which
was 10 or 12 inches long. As the engine had been paid for on shipment
and ran well when put together, there was no great harm done, but I
was sorry for the poor fellows who had to do the work. Except the one
already mentioned in my first governor pulley, ten or twelve years
before, this was the only misfit I can recall in my whole experience.
Mr. Ferguson told me the best piece-work story I ever heard. He said
he had a contract for making a large number of the bases for the
columns of the elevated railroad; these castings were quite large and
complicated. He gave the job to his best molder, but the man could
turn out only one a day. He thought it was slow work and spoke to him
about it, but he protested that was all he could make. Mr. Ferguson
found he could never complete his contract at that rate, and as he was
paying the man three dollars a day, he told him he would pay him three
dollars for each perfect casting and asked him to do his best and see
how many he could turn out. The man employed a boy to help him, and
by systematizing his work he turned out six perfect castings every day
and drew his eighteen dollars with supreme indifference. This is a big
story to swallow, but the incident was then recent. I had the story
from Mr. Ferguson himself, and he was a sterling, reliable man, so that
there could be no doubt as to its absolute truth.