Automobiles 1913-15: American Machinist Memories, edited by Lindsay Publications, published by Lindsay Publications, Bradley, IL, 2003. 8 1/2 x 11 softcover, 160 pages, ISBN 1-55918-295-4 It is highly appropriate, on the centennial of the mass-produced self-propelled automobile, that Lindsay gives us this outstanding contemporary record of the production technology behind the automobile industry in its infancy. Lindsay has selected 47 articles from American Machinist Magazine nearly a century ago, explaining in detail the advanced machining operations that went into producing an automobile – and how men like Henry Ford, Clarence Avery, the Dodge brothers, Henry Leland, and others, organized the hundreds of operations required into an efficient system of mass production that startled and amazed the world, often with specially designed machine tools and attachments. And it’s all beautifully illustrated with hundreds and hundreds of gorgeous b&w photos. My hat goes off to Lindsay and his printer for a truly remarkable job in reproducing these photos with the highest possible fidelity. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what you get here is the equivalent of a set of encyclopedias. You will be impressed all over again with the magnificent achievement of what the world once called “The American System.” The articles selected by Lindsay include the articles written by Fred Colvin on production methods and process of the Ford plant in Highland Park, Michigan. Colvin, who eventually retired in the 1940s with the honorary title of editor emeritus of American Machinist magazine, created a world-wide furor with his articles, as very few people were willing to believe the production statistics related by Colvin in his articles. The following is a lengthy excerpt from Colvin’s autobiography, Sixty Years With Men and Machines. (This quote was NOT in American Machinist and is NOT included in Lindsay’s compendium). In the beginning, Henry [Ford] was quite averse to publicity of any kind, and many writers had tried without success to get some kind of detailed story of what was going on in the Piquette Plant for the benefit of the magazine-reading public. Whether it was simply modesty, or xenophobia, or a desire to preserve intact the secrets of the trade, I did not find out; but in 1912, C. Harold Wills, whose father happened to be a close friend of my own father, took me to his company's new Highland Park Plant just before it was put in operation and promised me the opportunity of writing it up for the American Machinist as soon as they had it in running order. So when in January of 1913 I received an invitation to come to Detroit as a welcome representative of the fourth estate, I lost no time in heading in that direction. Henry had by this time evolved his revolutionary system of mass production, and whether the idea was original with him or not, the fact remains that his contribution to mass-production methods changed the whole pattern of industry and remains one of the most significant developments in the entire history of machines and machine tools. It is true that Ford builded on the foundations laid by others, and that he failed notably to credit the earlier work of men like Eli Whitney, Samuel Colt, Cyrus McCormick, and others who had achieved remarkable results with pioneer methods of mass production. It is also true that Ford, to use his own words from his Encyclopaedia Britannica article, "pioneered in the largest development of the method under a single management and for a single purpose.” The single management was Ford and his son; the single purpose was to build a standardized, low-cost, dependable, practical vehicle for every adult person in the world. I spent nearly two weeks at the Highland Park Plant, studying all the various assembly-line operations, asking hundreds of questions, speaking with dozens of engineers, draftsmen, designers, foundrymen, machine-tool operators, supervisors, and sales managers. The organization was not one-tenth of the size it is now, but it seemed vast enough even then. Ford had already attained a production rate of 10,000 cars a year, which was a fantastic figure to most readers of the articles, and in England was considered an outright falsification. Yet two years later, in 1915, Ford produced car No. 1,000,000, and not very long after that was manufacturing 10,000 cars in a single day at the Highland Park Plant. My articles on the Ford Plant appeared in sixteen installments in the American Machinist during 1913 and 1914, illustrated with more than a hundred photographs of the various installations and operations, and immediately began to create quite a stir in journalistic circles. In the first place, the industrial and engineering world had been clamoring for definitive information on the modus operand! of the fabulous Ford Plant, and in these articles they got the news for the very first time, complete with the blessing of Mr. Ford himself. The reaction from the British technical press was most interesting. Referring to my statement about 10,000 cars a year, one organ said editorially, "No manufacturer can possibly build that many cars in one year; and even if he could, he wouldn't be able to sell half of them." Another pointed with pride to their Rover Plant in Coventry, which had then the largest production of any British plant, saying that its output of 100 cars a month was certainly the most that any reputable manufacturer could possibly produce without seriously lowering his standards. But time and Henry proved that his critics didn't know what they were talking about. Ford and his engineers demonstrated that, given a sufficiently large demand for an article or product to make mass-production equipment feasible, great quantities could be produced accurately and efficiently at a unit cost far below any figure that had ever been dreamed of in the old days, together with tremendous savings in the amount of time and physical labor hitherto involved. Those of us who remember the old hand methods of scraping bearings, fitting pistons and piston rings, boring cylinders, and the slow and painstaking assembly methods, must realize that the practices now used by manufacturers of low-, medium-, and high-priced cars, as well as of many other industrial products, are traceable directly to the mass-production pattern established by Henry Ford. Assembling cars on a moving conveyer is a case in point. Not one of the other car manufacturers considered it practicable at the time Henry introduced it, or when they learned about it from the American Machinist articles. Such a method, they said, would give the builder no time at all for the "loving care" said to be lavished on some automobiles by their makers. It was not very long, however, before most of Ford's competitors had adopted the conveyer-line assembly system when they found that it not only speeded up production but also resulted in better machining of subassemblies, thus eliminating the need for hand fitting when the parts reached the assembly line. It’s not just Colvin and Ford that you’ll find in here. The articles selected by Lindsay include a look at the White Co., in Cleveland, Ohio; Crane Motor Car Co., in Bayonne, New Jersey; Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co., in Buffalo, New York; Mercer Car Co., Trenton, New Jersey; Cadillac; Holley Brothers Co., Detroit, Michigan; Humber Motor Co., Coventry, England; Studebaker Corp., Detroit, Michigan; Packard Motor Car Co., Detroit, Michigan; H.H. Franklin Manufacturing Co., Syracuse, New York; and others. Table of Contents: A Vision of the Automobile Industry Shop and Machine Details from the White Shop Tools for a High Grade Automobile Drilling and Milling in a Pioneer Auto Shop Methods of Making a High Grade Car More Interesting White Shop Methods Milling Connecting Rods Swages and Method of Making Lathe Tools Machining Automobile Cylinder Valve Holes Building an Automobile Every 40 Seconds Machining the Ford Cylinders - I Machining the Ford Cylinders - II Ford Crankshafts and Connecting Rods Ford Camshaft Machining Methods Ford Crank Cases and Transmission Covers Methods Used on the Ford Transmissions Making Rear Axles for the Ford Auto Forging and Machining Ford Front Axles Interesting Milling and Grinding Operations Methods Employed in Making the Ford Magneto Gaging Fixture for Crank-Case Castings Special Machines for Making Pistons Ford Radiators and Gasoline Tanks Special Machines Auto Small Parts Special Punching and Turning Operations Tools Used for Building the "Mercer" The Manufacture of Wire Wheels Continuous Pouring in the Ford Foundry Line Reaming for Crankshaft Bearings Cylinder Ring Lapping Machine Details of Cadillac Motor Work Thousand Carburetors a Day - I Making One Thousand Carburetors One Day - II Automobile Shops in the United States Machine for Drawing Automobile Radiators and Other Tubes Aluminum Alloy Castings in Sand Machining the Humber Motor Inspecting Crankshafts and Axles Handling Work Between Operations Drilling and Milling Operations Assembling Magnetos, Motors and Transmissions Special Operations at the Ford Plant Machining Packard Cylinders and Parts Methods Employed When Making the Franklin Crank Case Making the Schebler Carburetor and a Fur-Machine Part Assembling in Modern Automobile Shops Shop Transport Methods
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