An interesting paper on some of the leading American workshops was
lately read before the members of the Manchester Association of
Engineers on Saturday by Mr. Hans Renold. After expressing his opinion
that the English people did not sufficiently look about them or try to
understand what other nations were doing, Mr. Renold stated that he
had visited that portion of America known as New England, and the
works he had inspected were among the best in the United States. Among
the many special features he had noticed he mentioned that in a Boston
establishment where milling machine cutters were made he had found
that £1 spent in wages produced as much as £30 to £40 worth of goods,
the cutters being made at the rate of about sixty-four per hour by
about a dozen men. Another noticeable feature was the exceptional care
taken in storing tools in American workshops. These, in fact, were
treated as if they were worth their weight in gold; they were stored
in safes much in the same manner as we in England stored our money. He
was, however, impressed by the fact that the mere understanding of the
method of American working would not enable them to do likewise in
England, because the American workmen had gone through a special
training, and a similar training would be necessary to enable English
workmen to adapt themselves to American machines. One very noticeable
feature in American engineering shops which he visited was that all
the machine men and turners were seated on blocks or stools at their
machines, and the question naturally arose in his mind what would
English engineers say if such a practice were adopted in their shops.
In other ways he was also struck by the special attention devoted to
the comfort of the workmen, and he was much impressed by the healthy
condition of the emery polishing shops as compared with similar shops
in this country. In England these shops in most cases were simply
deathtraps to the workmen, and he urged that the superior method of
ventilation carried out in the States should be adopted in this
country by introducing a fan to each wheel to take away the particles,
etc., which were so injurious. One very special feature in the United
States was that works were devoted to the manufacture of one
particular article to an almost inconceivable extent, and that heavy
machine tools complete and ready to be dispatched were kept in stock
in large numbers. American enterprise was not hampered as it too
frequently was in England by want of capital; while in England we were
ready to put our savings in South American railways or fictitious gold
mines, but very chary about investing capital which would assist an
engineer in bringing out an honest improvement, in America, on the
other hand, it was a common practice among the best firms to invest
their savings over and over again in their works, which were thus kept
in a high state of perfection.
The above paper came in for some pretty severe criticism. Mr. John
Craven remarked that although Mr. Renold had gone over a wide field of
subjects, he had practically confined his remarks to Messrs. Brown &
Sharpe's establishment, and while he (Mr. Craven) was ready to admit
that so far as high class work and sanitary arrangements were
concerned, Messrs. Brown & Sharpe's were a model, they could not be
put forward as representative of American establishments generally. As
a matter of fact, many of the American workshops were not as good as a
large number of similar workshops in Manchester. Mr. Renold had
referred to the extensive use of gear cutters in the United States,
but he might point out that it was in Manchester that the milling
machine was first made. Mr. Samuel Dixon said he had certainly come to
the conclusion that no better work was done in America than could be
and was being done in this country; while as regards the enormous
production of milling cutters, that was simply an example of what
could be done where large firms devoted themselves to the production
of one specialty. With regard to the statement made by Mr. Renold that
the American thread was preferable to the Whitworth thread, he might
say he entirely disagreed with such a conclusion, and he might add
that after visiting a variety of Continental and American workshops he
should certainly not, if he were called upon to award the palm of
superiority in workmanship, go across the Atlantic for that purpose.
Mr. J. Nasmith remarked that whether English engineers were the
inventors of the milling machine or not, it must be admitted that it
was through this type of cutter being taken up by the Americans that
milling had become the success it was at the present time. English
engineers were very conservative, and it was only through the pressure
of circumstances that milling machines came into general use in this
country. When American inventions were brought to England they were
generally improved to the highest degree, but he thought the chief
fault of both American and Continental engineers was what one might
call "over-refinement;" there was such a thing as over-finishing an
object and overdoing it. If, however, American machinery was so much
superior to what we had in this country, as asserted by the reader of
the paper, how was it that cotton machinery, with all its intricacies,
could be sent to the United States, in the face of American
manufacturers, even though the cost was increased from 40 to 60 per
cent.? At the present time it was possible for English machinists to
secure contracts for the whole of the machinery in an American mill,
and inclusive of freight charges and high tariff, deliver and erect it
in America at a lower cost than American engineers with all the
advantages of their immeasurably superior tools were able to do.
Another speaker, Mr. Barstow, ridiculed the idea that the Americans
could be so pre-eminent in the manufacture of emery wheels as might be
inferred from Mr. Renold, when they had before them the fact that from
the neighborhood of Manchester thousands of emery wheels were every
year exported to the United States.
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