Pneumatic Grease Gun
date: label: Date made
content: 1930s
label: date made
content: ca. 1930s
name: label: maker
content: Alemite Company
notes: label: Description
content: The Alemite Company manufactured this pneumatically powered grease guns during the 1930s. An Alemite gun was designed to inject hard or soft grease quickly into a machinery bearing. (Regular greasing of such bearings was needed to prevent friction and bearing failure.) The pneumatically operated gun required a special Alemite "fitting," designed to mate tightly with the business end of the gun, to be installed at every location where grease was to flow from the gun to an internal bearing surface.
label: Description
content: The gun, and the fittings, provided a tremendous labor-saving improvement over previous methods of greasing critical internal bearings. In a locomotive roundhouse, a greasing crew of two men could lubricate all the rod bearings of a given locomotive in 20-30 minutes (depending on the size of the locomotive) instead of the hours required previously. A large steam locomotive, running in heavy duty on a railroad, required rod greasing approximately every 100 miles. Such greasing was usually done at a terminal, when a fresh load of fuel was put into the tender and other servicing performed on the locomotive.
topic: label: Subject
content: Railroads
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Transportation, Railroad
label: See more items in
content: Work
label: See more items in
content: America on the Move
label: See more items in
content: Transportation
label: Exhibition
content: America On The Move
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2002.0129.01
label: catalog number
content: 2002.0129.01
label: accession number
content: 2002.0129
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Pneumatic grease gun
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 1/2 in x 26 1/2 in x 4 3/4 in; 19.05 cm x 67.31 cm x 12.065 cm