James Hartness - Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship

At age 16, Hartness began his career in machine shops. At age 21 he became a foreman at the Winsted-Norway Bolt Company in Winsted, Connecticut. He moved in 1886 to Torrington, Connecticut to work as a tool-maker and foreman at the Union Hardware Company. His lifetime achievement of more than 100 patents began here with patents of locks, roller skates, and bicycle pedal mechanisms.

Hartness had an unpleasant experience at Union Hardware: he had been understandably naive about arranging for royalties on his patents, and the business owners chose not to help rectify the oversight. He did not get to share in the profits derived from the patents. In September 1888, after he had lost several weeks' work to illness, Union Hardware told him not to return.

During the winter of 1888–1889, he worked briefly for several companies: Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, Connecticut; Eaton, Cole and Burnham Co. in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a plant in Scottdale, Pennsylvania. Roe (1937) surmised that sometime during 1888 or a little before, the idea of the flat-turret lathe had developed in his mind; and that his peregrinations in the winter of 1888–1889 were in search of a suitable company at which to build it.

In April 1889 he moved to Springfield, Vermont to become the superintendent at the struggling Jones and Lamson (J&L) Machine Company. He used his creative energy to revitalize the company. Here he found his chance to manufacture the flat-turret lathe, which increased efficiency and productivity and was especially well adapted to the burgeoning automobile industry. The flat turret lathe improved upon earlier turret lathes via greater rigidity, allowing higher precision, higher speeds and feeds, and longer cuts. Hartness also developed an array of highly advanced tooling to complement the lathe, including improved roller bar feed and die head designs. All of these advantages allowed better parts to be made faster, and thus less expensively, which made the lathe highly desirable to manufacturers. This time, Hartness was prepared to defend his interest in his patent. He arranged with J&L to receive a $100 royalty on each machine.

Hartness changed J&L’s business model from making a wide variety of machines to order to specializing in the manufacturing and improving of this one product. With rapid acceptance of this machine tool, orders reached 10 units per day from the manufacturing sector. As a result, Hartness reportedly received up to $1,000 per day in royalties. He also introduced appealing and informative catalogues to market the new Jones and Lamson products. Hartness acquired a large interest in J&L. He became manager in 1896 and president in 1901 until his retirement in 1933.

"You will hear from that young man again, and from this 'Lazy Susan' of his."

— Ambrose Swasey, on James Hartness, after Hartness had unsuccessfully shopped his flat-turret idea around with several machine tool builders, including Warner & Swasey. Swasey was the only one who predicted success for the idea.

In 1915 Hartness reluctantly decided to engage in “war business,” heeding his brother John’s pleas from the London office of J&L. During World War I Hartness, as a representative of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), became Chairman of the National Screw-Thread Commission, the mission of which was to create international standards for the measurement and sizing of screw threads.

Hartness discouraged modernizing of the Hartness Flat Turret Lathe. Nevertheless, it remained a very successful product until after Hartness's retirement, when a new J&L turret lathe model by John Lovely finally replaced it.

Hartness’s interest in the measurement and standardization led to his invention of an optical device that allowed the profile of small parts to be illuminated and compared with their desired outline. Traditionally, mechanics used a mechanical gauge to assess whether screws were to specifications. Hartness employed his knowledge of optics and magnification to devise a much more practical optical method for measurement. The Hartness Screw-Thread Comparator was his crowning achievement in the profitability of J&L. Today optical comparators are a common form of equipment in many machine shops.

The 1921 edition of the ASME mechanical catalog and directory showed that J&L offered several models of Hartness flat turret lathe, an automatic chucking lathe, an automatic die, a screw-thread comparator, and the Fay automatic lathe. J&L had offices in Springfield, Vermont, San Francisco, California, and London, England, plus agents in five other countries.