by Dan Wiswell
About thirty years ago I was doing some spring cleaning and decided to bring a few tables worth of items to a large flea market in south-central New Hampshire. I had an assortment of old tools and some household items, but on a whim, I also brought some antique electrical instruments from my collection. I got there early and hadn’t been set up very long when two older ladies came up to my display. They looked at my instruments and asked if I had found them at some estate sale. I told them that I had been collecting them for many years. Turning around, they looked into the crowd and disappeared for a while but returned with two other ladies. I won’t soon forget the near loving looks of what I perceived to be affection when they looked at each instrument. One said to the others that she remembered making wire-wound resistors with a Leeds and Northrup bridge that I had on display. The eldest of the group was eighty-six years old and asked me many questions about where I had found the meters and instruments, and then more pointedly asked if I knew what they were all used for. Luckily, I was able to answer her questions and as I did the looks from all four ladies began to soften. They had all worked in the instrument industry, the eldest worked at Beede Instruments in 1928. In the following half hour, I learned more about the way things were in my industry than I had previously imagined in all my time as a metrologist. They told me stories of the companies that they and their friends had worked in. I learned that just prior to the market crash of 1929, business was so good that they couldn’t find applicants talented enough to do some of the work, so some manufacturers paid women to assemble meter movements at home at piece-work rates. One of the ladies told me that her mother taught her how to build moving-coil assemblies at her sewing table at home. She used those skills for nearly the entire rest of her career.
I think that many people take a kind of short-handed look at how things may have been in days gone by. Reading about history in grade school, decades of time are often compressed into a few paragraphs and never truly relate the experiences of the daily lives of those from previous generations. The reality is that the world has always been more complex that most people imagine. Time has seen the passing of entire industries as technology has marched forward casting a myriad of trades into obsolescence in a natural selection kind of way. This process has sped up tremendously in the throw-away reality that we live in today. But in days of old, nearly everything broken was repaired and products were designed to be repairable. Just as in other industries, instrument manufacturers had service departments to serve the aftermarket needs of their clientele. Many of these manufacturers sold their products through distributors that also had service departments which created another ancillary market for spare parts. The electro-mechanical manufacturing industry was supported by a broad network of specialty component manufacturers and custom tool makers, each with their own distribution networks. Meter manufacturers contracted the services of machine shops for many of the basic components that went into each product such as pivots, jewels and hairsprings. These are the kinds of details that are often forgotten by time.
Instrument distributors used to carry inventories of what were called “mod meters.” These basic meters were designed to be easily modified so that they could be used in a variety of customers’ applications.
This is a Weston Model 271. Many thousands of these meters were modified and ranged to measure a host of different parameters. Notice that the example shown has a blank scale. A meter like this would enter a value-added production process where it would be outfitted with a custom scale that would often include the logo and other artwork provided by the customer. The meter would also have an internal circuit added to interface with the equipment that it was intended to be used in. This may include series or parallel resistor networks, rectifiers or other components, to meet the requirements of each application. Meters like this could also be modified to indicate in reverse by suppressing the mechanical zero-correctors or have its hairsprings changed out so that the customer could have positive and negative meter indications with a zero-centered scale.
As a young metrologist in the 1970s, I remember that all my fellow metrologists used a wooden mandril to support meter movements as they were being worked on. Trying to fit in, I made one for myself and brought it into work. When my boss saw it, he laughed and gave me one of his older ones. I guess I tucked my creation away, because I was surprised recently when one of my metrologists found it in a box above our lab and asked me what it was. I wish I still had the superior one that my boss gave me.
I also wish that I had the presence of mind to have been able to gather up as much of the ephemera from my earlier days of working in various laboratories as I could have done. It may be for the better though, as it might now be like dragging along Jacob Marley’s chains. If I had, I’d be able to relate a much more complete picture of what life was like to live a day in the life of an old-world metrologist. Pictured below are a few of the components and tools that were widely used back in those times.
This picture by itself shows many things. Pivots and hair springs. Spring adjuster tools made by P.K. Nueses Inc. These particular tools were made very early on in that company’s history, as Arlington Height Illinois was the location of their original factory. These tools were used to shape hair springs.
In those days you could buy replacement pointers, pivots, jewels and all of the other replaceable parts that kept the meter repair industry going. All of these things got damaged or went missing and could be replaced. Everyone working at the benches around me back then had an assortment of balancing weights, as well as a collection of specialized fasteners, screws and other hardware.
I used to hold my breath as I watched in amazement when the more experienced metrologists deftly removed damaged hair springs and then expertly reattached new ones with an economy of motion.
Something strange seems to have happened in the intervening years that stretch between the early day of my career and the present time. Tens of thousands of pieces of equipment have all merged into one continuous learning experience. Snippets of conversations that occurred decades ago still help me to manage my laboratory through each working day. And fortunately, as I’m sure is the case with many of us, until they repeal Ohm’s Law we all still have a job.
Dan Wiswell (dcwiswell@repaircalibration.net) is a self-described Philosopher of Metrology. He is President/CEO of Cal-Tek Company, Inc. and Amblyonix Industrial Instrument Company.
