The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-15
MAKING THE WOOD SCREW.
DEVELOPMENT OF4 GREAT MER- / ICAN IND USTRY.
Work of Many Inventors-Processes of the Harveys, Sloan, Rogers and Oth- OTIS Described,

the Harveys, sloan, Rogers and 9th
 OTIS Described.
 At last weeks meeting of the Provi
 dence Association of Mechanical Engi
 neers a history of the development o1
 the wood screw. which brought fortunes
 to many Providence men, was given by
 MT Charles D. Rogers, for years witt
 the American Screw company, and now
 identified with the Rogers Screw com
 pany. MT. Rogers contribution to the
 history of the screw industry is of gen.
 eral interest, and may be regarded as
 official.
 The origin of the gimlet point on a
 wood screw, MT. Rogers states, is not
 known, but the invention has been
 claimed for many individuals. It cer-
 tainly was in use in 175S, for there is a
 piano at Smith college, Northampton,
 Mass, inscribed in that year. which
 contains gimlet pointed wood screws.
 Tapered screws resembling somewhat
 the common gimlet point were made by
 the Poughkeepsie Screw company of
 Poughkeepsie, N. Y., about the year
 1886, and the Mechanics Institute of
 New York city awarded that company
 a diploma for such screws at about that
 date. These tapered screws went out of
 use because af their tapering body or
 core, which made them work loose in
 articles or structures subjected to vi-
 bration or movement
 Almost numberless forms of screws
 have been invented and patented, but
 were found to be without utility, or
 were too costly to produce. The mate-
 rial now employed for making wood
 screws is commonly that of high
 grade Bessemer steel, homogeneous in
 structure and free cutting. An almost ideal material for screw making was formerly produced from light scrap iron sunk in charcoal fire.
 The first manufacture of wood screws by machinery was probably in France, and was carried on in connection with the manufacture of clocks and watches. The makers then engaged in it have since become large producers of what is called French stamped ware. The presses for making the barrels for con- taining the springs of watches were probably used for heading screw blanks and are said to have led to the intro duction of a header specially designed for their manufacture. These blanks were threaded in what is known as a French threader, which consisted of a shaft located in bearings with a leader screw and a simple hand clamp at one end of the spindle and crank at the other. Then a tool post was erected, t,y I ,J To fl, nf,, screw at every cut and traverse it's threaded portion. The machine was also furnished with back rest sup porting the blank while being threaded. In this machine the threading of the blank was begun at the point in place of at the heel-as in all present screw cutting nachinery-and was operated entirely by hand, no automatic attach ments being employed. Formany years the so-called French threader was commonly used for threading wood screws. Soon after the war of 1872 the Piersons of Ramapo, New York state, | engaged in the manufacture of screws in connection with that of nails. They used the French threader and claimed to have improved it somewhat. In their employ were two ingenious me- chanics named Crum, who invented | partly automatic machinery for shaw | ing, nicking and threading screws and | following this period. wood screws were made by the use of four | ma chimes, header, shaver, nicker and | threader, the latter employing cutting | die instead of chasing tool The sha- yer consisted originally of a single | spindle in which the blank was inserted ! by hand, and the shaving tool was | brought up also by hand lever. The licking In the head was done by plac- Ing the blank between two roulettes plates the axis of the two set at flight angle. These were continuously | evolved. The blank was placed in the op of these roulettes by hand. The saw for nicking was on level with he axis of the roulete, consequently the aces of the two plates approached each ,ther and clasped the blank as it ap- preached and passed the saw, the saw being made adjustable to give the nick he proper depth. The nick produced n this case was slightly convex. These oulette feeds and jaws were afterward so as to be intermittent and he saw was drawn forward and back y cam motion, which made the bot : om of the nick concave, that is, deep | st in the middle. As the roulette re- olved, the faces of the plate separated nd the slotted blank was released. 'imilar machinery to this was used by he old Providence Screw company and bout the year 1883 that company H. ( ensed the Eagle Screw company to use Us processes. The latter was sued S he Piersons of Ramapo for infringe z lent of Crum s patents and a Judgment yas obtained against the Eagle Screw Z ompany that, with expenses of litiga- ( ion, amounted to nearly the whole l mount of its capital. The shareholders l the Providence Screw company being ( cid personally liable for these dama- I es under their charter were compelled I large part to make the amount good The old James blunt pointed screw nee so generously used in this country, ! as manufactured in Birmingham, ngland. The company was afterward , bsorbed by the Nettlefolds of the same c ty. Screw blanks furnished by the T cotch "nailers' were used by the ear e est British makers of wood screws. t he heads and shanks were trimmed by s rev makers with a coarse file and t le former probably was nicked by a d and saw The earliest samples would c dicate that the threads were filed, but e ter on they had the appearance of be- e- a1 a pntjrn |