Automatic Screw Making Machine
date: label: date made
content: ca 1875
name: label: manufacturer
content: Waltham Watch Company
label: designer
content: Woerd, Vander
notes: label: Description
content: Charles Vander Woerd, a superintendent at the American Watch Co. in Waltham, Mass., invented this machine in 1871. It was the first automatic lathe to make watch screws. Fed rod stock by a machine operator, the machine worked on a single screw at a time, passing the stock through a succession of different cutting tools. The earliest machines produced minute screws to hold watch jewels, but, after 1874 improvements, the machines could make watch screws of other sizes.
label: Description
content: By one count, one worker could tend six or eight machines, with an output between 1200 and 1500 screws per day. The watch company displayed two machines at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876, according to a Swiss observer, who reported that one machine could make 800 screws per day with only 5% waste.
label: Description
content: The nickel-plated finish on this example indicates it was a demonstration piece, not a factory production machine, and it may have been one of those at the Exposition.
label: Description
content: Waltham tool makers continued to improve Vander Woerd’s designs and kept automatic screw-cutting machines in use at both American Watch Company and other watchmaking firms well into the 20th century.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Church, D. A. <i>The Evolution of Automatic Machinery as applied to the manufacture of watches at Waltham, Mass.,</i> Chicago: G. K. Hazlitt, 1896.
label: Description
content: David, Jacques. <i>Rapport a la Société Intercantonale des Industries du Jura sur la Fabrication de L’horlogerie aux Etats-Unis,</i> Saint-Imier, Compagnie des montres Longines Francillon SA, 1992. [available in translation at http://www.watkinsr.id.au/david.html, retrieved 24 Jan 16]
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ME.316564
label: catalog number
content: 316564
label: accession number
content: 225117
objectType: label: Object Name
content: automatic screw machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: nickel plated cast iron (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 3/8 in x 20 7/8 in x 20 1/4 in; 26.3525 cm x 53.0225 cm x 51.435 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 1/4 in x 20 1/4 in x 20 1/4 in; 26.035 cm x 51.435 cm x 51.435 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: p7098: 23 in x 48 in x 40 in; 58.42 cm x 121.92 cm x 101.6 cm