THE HISTORY OF TOOLS
When Frederick Geier paid $7000
in 1887 for an interest in Cincinnati Screw and Tap Co., it was a small job
shop in downtown Cincinnati. By the time of Geier's death in 1934, the company
known today as Cincinnati Milacron had become America's largest machine tool
manufacturer, a distinction it still holds.
Geier's business acumen is largely responsible for the company's
success. His domination of the market was all the more remarkable in that,
unlike many entrepreneurs in the history of machine tools, Geier was no machinist
or engineer. He had little technical background. However, he knew talent
when he saw it, had the ability to recruit the best, and during his 47 years
with the company assembled one of the finest engineering teams the industry
has ever seen.
A Future in Milling
A Cincinnati native and the son of Bavarian immigrants, Geier had moved out of the area after school, finding work in a bank in Newton, KS. He had been hired to work with the Mennonite population in the area because he could speak German. However, the young Geier returned to Cincinnati after a t time, and following his father's unexpected death in 1887, found himself in charge of the family woodworking business making bungs for barrels.
Geier was convinced there soon would be little call for his father's business, so he was on the lookout for an industry he thought would have more of a future. He found it in a small, local metalworking shop.
Partners Fred Holz and George Mueller, German immigrants, had been making screws, taps, and dies in their shop -- Cincinnati Screw and Tap Co.-- since the 1870s. In 1878, they decided they needed a new milling machine. Since they couldn't afford to buy one, Holz built one from scratch.
In the process, Holz came up with several innovations. Commonly available machine tools of the time, such as the Brown & Sharpe universal milling machine, were laden with cranks and levers positioned at odd angles, making them awkward to operate. Holz placed all of these on a centralized control panel. The adjustment levers were provided with micrometer dials, while the shank for elevating crank and the cross-screw handle could be used simultaneously. This eliminated a lot of walking around for the machinist. Holz also incorporated a counterclockwise-rotating spindle, which allowed for the use of standard drills, boring tools, and reamers on the machine for the first time.
As news of Holz's innovations spread, other shops wanted Cincinnati Screw and Tap to build them a mill, too. By 1882, milling machines had become a regular addition to the company's line of products. The firm won the silver award for best milling machine at the 1884 Cincinnati Industrial Exposition.
To move more decisively into the milling machine business, the shop needed capital. Jacob Bloom, a local venture capitalist, put up $2000, and Cincinnati Screw and Tap issued shares and incorporated in 1884, with Bloom as company president. The growth of the company during the 1880s is difficult to chronicle, as there are few sales or employment figures available, but the new corporation had its problems. It had to move quarters twice, once after a flood on the Ohio River and once after a fire.
When Geier learned of the company in 1887, he quickly saw the potential of Holz's milling machine. He bought out Bloom's interest in the company. Holz became president, and Geier became secretary/treasurer. Mueller served as vice president, until selling his interest in the company in 1891. In 1889, they sold off the screw and tap business and renamed the firm Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. (The company did not become Cincinnati Milacron until 1970.)
Geier knew he was no technician; he left that side of the business to Holz and his engineering staff. Geier's talent lay in organization, promotion, and sales. Often, in those early years, he'd take the early milk train to towns several hours distant in order to be on hand when potential customers opened their shop doors. Before the end of the day, Geier would be back in Cincinnati taking care of office and factory business, where he acted as secretary, treasurer, and book-keeper.
Meanwhile, Holz and his colleagues kept busy designing
new machine tools. One of the most important was a cutter grinder, first
offered for sale in 1889. This machine gave machinists their first opportunity
to resharpen cutting tools, rather than throwing them out as soon as they
dulled. This became an important supplement to milling machine sales.
Bicycle Boom
All of these efforts produced steady growth. Employment rose from 12 in 1884 to 50 in 1891, when the company moved into a new plant in Cincinnati's Mill Creek Valley. That year, Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. produced 136 machines and grossed $47,611. The next year it produced 209 machines and grossed $71,205.
Growth came to a sudden halt in 1893, when the U.S. economy collapsed, and the nation entered the worst depression it had yet seen. Money and credit disappeared. At "the Mill,", as employees had begun calling the young company, sales evaporated. With all of the company's capital tied up in the new plant, little cash was left to tide the firm over.
Geier saw one opportunity for the Mill to survive. Sales of the new low-wheel bicycle were hot everywhere, despite the economy. To till its orders, a bicycle manufacturer in Indianapolis needed a dozen milling machines. But that company, too, was short of cash and couldn't get credit.
Geier knew he was taking a risk, but he called the Mill's emplyees into a general meeting and told them:"We're up against it. We can't borrow any money. Here's a chance for us to get an order, if we give the fellow nine months' time on it. Boys, what shall we do? We can't pay you cash for your wages. I believe we can give you 25 cents on the dollar, and give you the balance in scrip."
The workers accepted, perhaps knowing they didn't have much choice under the circumstances. Butchers, bakers, and grocers around Cincinnati, also feeling the depression, accepted company scrip as if it were cash.
The gamble paid off. Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. redeemed its scrip on time, and by the following year was doing well enough to pay its first divident, $9 per share.
Holz and his engineering crew took advantage of the new prosperity and kept turning out inventions. In 1900, they introduced a gear-driven power feed. Previously, operators of most milling machines fed the workpiece into the cutting tool by moving the table with a hand crank. Obviously, it was next to impossible to get a steady feed rate. Early attempts to solve this problem using belt-driven feeds met with some success. The Mill's engineers achieved even better performance with the first fee-change mechanism entirely driven by gears, with positive connections from the spindle through the feed mechanism to the feed screws. The arrangement allowed the machinist to choose from a wide range of possible feed rates. The machine earned a gold medal at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris.
It was another innovation two years later, however, that changed the environment of manufacturing forever. Up until then, a factory's machine tools were not independently powered. Rather, they were powered by a central steam engine through complex arrangements of overhead shafts, pulleys, and belts that were prone to slip, bringing production to a halt. Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. offered shop owners a way to eliminate such encumbrances. The firm introduced a milling machine powered by its own electric motor.
The Mill offered improvements in the area of workholding
as well, introducing a universal dividing head in 1902. The device held
a workpiece so the operator could rotate it accurately and perform cutting
operations at precise angles and intervals.
The Industrial Park
As the company began to outgrow its Mill Valley site, Geier decided to take another gamble. He envisioned not just a larger factory, but a self-sufficient, vertically integrated workplace, with its own foundry to produce castings and its own power plant. Furthermore, other companies would share the costs and risks of this development by moving to the new site. This type of development had no name at the turn of the century, but today it would be called an industrial park.
Geier chose a 102-acre site at Oakley, a village of 500 then well outside the Cincinnati city limits that offered access to a railroad line and plenty of undeveloped land. (The area since has been annexed by the city.) It was an expensive, daring plan. Holz thought it so risky that he resigned from the company. Nevertheless, Geier, who replaced Holz as company president, forged ahead, financing the project through a consortium of banks and the issue of preferred stock.
Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. completed its move to Oakley by 1911. Geier had been successful in convincing other firms to move there, too. By 1912, the following firms either had built on the side or were contracted to build there: Cincinnati Bickford, Cincinnati Planer Co., Triumph Electric Co., Cincinnati Lathe & Tool Co., alvey Ferguson Co., and Cincinnati Balcrank.
The industrial park was just one example of Geier's business innovations. In 1914, he invited his brother, Dr. Otto Geier, to set up a medical department at the Mill. The request led to one of the nation's pioneering industrial-health programs. Otto Geier's efforts helped the Mill's employees pull through the terrible flu epidemic of 1919 healthier than most.
Geier also was a pioneer in the field of technical education. Working with Herman Schneider, dean of the University of Cincinnati, Geier formulated a plan for a cooperative-education class. Students alternated college classroom study with work at the Mill and at other manufacturing businesses around the city. This educational model has since been adopted by more than 1000 colleges and universities worldwide.
Geier and his engineering stall also forged relationships
with cutting tool manufacturers to make sure developments in tooling kept
pace with the increasing horsepower and flexibility of Cincinnati mills.
For example, Adolf De Leeuw, the Mill's chief engineer, once complained
to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers that milling cutters then
available gave out long before maximum horsepower on Cincinnati machines
was achieved. This complaint prompted a cooperative effort between the Mill's
engineers and a local firm, Union Twist Drill Co., to develop the "high-power
facemill." The fruit of their labor was introduced in 1912. Featuring cutter
blades set at a 15` positive-rake angle, the tool offered a 50% increase
in metal removed per unit of horsepower used Subsequent developments included
the rake-angle spiral and slotting cutter with staggered teeth. These innovations
remain part of milling-cutter technology.
Centerless Grinding
Another severe economic downturn following the end of World War I convinced management that the company needed to diversify beyond its traditional line of milling machines. Noting that grinding was a key manufacturing process for the fledgling automotive industry, Geier's son, Frederick V., convinced his father to invest in this technology. In 1921, the company purchased a controlling interest in the Cincinnati Grinder Co., a maker of center-type grinding machines.
That move wasn't entirely satisfactory. Henry Ford
at Ford Motor Co. let Geier know he was much more interested in centerless
grinding. In center-type grinding, the workpiece is supported at each end
and turned around its own centerline, as on a lathe, into the abrasive grinding
wheel. The process itself is fast and accurate, but loading, positioning,
and unloading the workpiece is time-consuming. In centerless grinding, the
workpiece is not supported at either end, but rather rests on the edge of
a blade, between the grinding wheel and a regulating wheel that controls
the spin of the workpiece. This eliminates a lot of part handling and allows
higher feed rates than center-type grinding.
In 1924, Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. purchased key patents on the centerless-grinding
process from Lewis heim at Ball & Roller Bearing Co., Danbury, CT. A
story told about the purchase maintains Heim insisted on being paid an undisclosed
price in gold coins, hand-delivered in a canvas bag to Heim's bank by Walter
Tangeman, who later became the Mill's board chairman.
Norton Co, the abrasive-grinding-wheel manufacturer in Worcester, MA, challenged the patents in court. After several years of complex litigation, Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. was declared the rightful patent holder. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Sol Einstein(a distand relative of the more famous Albert) and George Binns, who reported to Geier, the Mill's engineers worked to improve the grinder's design. As a result, they were able to tighten tolerances on automotive-engine piston pins from 0.0005" to 0.0001", which resulted in quieter, more powerful and more durable engines.
In 1926, Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. shipped $5.1
million worth of machine tools and related products, surpassing industry
leader Brown & Sharpe of Rhode Island by $900,000, according to the National
Machine Tool Builders' Association. That made the Mill the nations' largest
machine tool manufacturer. After achieving his greatest triumph, Frederick
A. Geier lived another eight years. He remained company president until
his death.
