The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-02-04
Frederic Haskin's Lette,
A World Monopoly Broken.

actly alike. No Measures.
be absolutely exact. Of courss -
Is why your new car "vorss IL
What the manufacture sas..
above all then, Is some 49,,
measure which he can ,et =
distance. and by which he a.
rect his micrometers and oths,
struments. Before the ~ {.
tirely-and to = great extsc,
Just recently-there WA on,,
firm in the world which maj
q measuring apparatus. NJ. ~
the firm Of C. E. Johann,c. e
Sweden. This firm made mi. y
OF 81 steel blocks, looking In y. ~
dren's building blocks. The ~. su,'
arity OF these blocks was III, W.
surface of each block Wa IA ~
lutely nat, absolutely PARMA y.
the other surface, and the d,,s. MI 70
between the two surfaces Is."
with exactitude to the ter-tS S"a
ssnu'I Vi an incn: The smallest n, +
these blocks was half an inch sS;ss
and the largest four inches tA M.
but the 81 Intervening blocks sh.-
ed a great variety of sizes N y.
thousandths Of an inch. Thev =.
so graded that by piling 4 isv !.
these blocks together you al -
any measurement that need ~ u
finer than this ten-thousaudth ~ :
inch. BY this little pile Of Ma.
you can set a micrometer or 4 :.
chine, and be sure Of your accsr,.,
The Swedish Secret
The only trouble was thai ",
Johannson Of Sweden wouN M,
tell anyone how he made thoss =,
faces perfectly fat. Mind .you n
any good machine shop you MIN
make q set Of precision ean,.
blocks, as they are calles
just like Mr.. Johannson's one ~
one. doing all the work by hand i
would be a very long, slow lob, M
Johannson's great advantage N.
that he had discovered sous v,y o.
making these things by MACHINERY
rapidly and in quantity. No o.,
else in the world could do II, An
the world went to Sweden for Il,
gauge blocks. Before the WI.
Johannson got about $500 . set FOR
them, which was probably twis
what it cost him to make them, and
during the war this price more than
doubled, while it was hard to "a,
them at any price because the De.
mand exceeded the supply.
Now we get back to the bureau
Of ordnance, which had a great apd
pressing need for precision gaus,
blocks. 1t also had in its emplo,
one Major W. E. Hoke, who had q
idea. He thought he saw how pre-
cision gauge blocks could be mad,
by machinery. His idea, roughly
was this: Cut the blocks az neel
the desired size as possible: The,
place them between two surfaces
the upper Of which is a slowly
moving grinding surface, Get Il
grind the blocks as near a. pos
sible to the size desired. Their
would, Of course. be error. VIVA
Major Hoke thought, and afterwaf
proved, was that if these block
were shifted in position betveeI
the two surfaces, in a regular rota
ton, the errors would tend to com
pensate each other, and all Of thes
blocks would come out exactly th
same size.
This may not seem probable
you. It does not seem probable :
a layman, even when he looks a
the machine doing it, as we did
But it worked. Major Hoke Va
assigned by the war department
the bureau Of standards, and thert
with the help of the governmen
men and in the government shop
he worked out his machine. H
gave the government the use Of th
machine, but he was allowed !
take out the patent in his on
name. He has now made and Al
rangement with the Pratt & Whit
ney company of Hartford, Conn
for the manufacture of these gaus
blocks. They are being manufat
tured in large numbers, and eac
set is tested by the bureau Of stand
ards. The arrangement is said
be very profitable both to the il
ventor and to the manufacturer
Moreover, America no longer got
to Sweden for its gauge block
And American shops which coul
never before obtain or afford a 81
Of gauge blocks, now have them.