The Van Norman Machine Tool Company was an American

machine tool builder A machine tool builder is a corporation or person that builds machine tools, usually for sale to manufacturers, who use them to manufacture products. A machine tool builder runs a machine factory, which is part of the machine industry. The machin ...

from late in the 19th century until the mid-1980s. The company was based in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. Its main areas of focus were

milling machines Milling is the process of machining using rotary cutters to remove material by advancing a cutter into a workpiece. This may be done by varying direction on one or several axes, cutter head speed, and pressure. Milling covers a wide variety of d ...

and

grinding machine A grinding machine, often shortened to grinder, is a power tool (or machine tool) used for grinding. It is a type of machining using an abrasive wheel as the cutting tool. Each grain of abrasive on the wheel's surface cuts a small chip from th ...

Early history

Waltham Watch Tool Co Van Norman advert in Machinery 1902

A pair of brothers surnamed Van Norman were the founders of the company. Their names were Charles E. and Fred D. Van Norman.. The Van Normans began their company as the Hopkins Watch Tool Company in

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, ...

around 1874.. Their first products were watch repair lathes and associated tooling. In 1883, they bought the name Waltham Watch Tool Company, as that company started watch production under the name of U.S. Watch Co. It was at that time that the move was made to Springfield. In 1890 the first Van Norman Milling Machine was built, and in 1914 the first of Van Norman's oscillating

s was introduced. Oscillating grinders were sold to many of the world's leading manufacturers of ball and roller bearings.

Ram type mills

Van Norman was most noted for their "ram type" milling machines, which due to their swiveling head design could be converted quickly and easily from horizontal to vertical spindles. The ram type mills were produced for many years and in a wide range of sizes, from the home-shop-sized No. 6 up to the 9,000 pound No. 38. The company also produced heavy horizontal milling machines, as well as a small vertical milling machine for tool and die work.

Other tools

In addition to milling machines, Van Norman pursued several other machining-related lines of business. ;Automotive repair Van Norman pioneered a portable

boring bar A boring bar is a tool used in metalworking and woodworking. Boring is a technique used in many aspects of building. Woodworkers have used boring as a form of drilling for centuries. In woodworking, the boring tool is static in size and used to ...

that could be used to bore the cylinders of automobile engines without removing the engine from the automobile. They also manufactured other automotive service machinery, such as brake lathes and crankshaft grinders. When Van Norman ceased to exist as an independent company, the automotive portion was purchased b
Kwik-Way
who still sell tools and machinery using the Van Norman name. ;Machine tools for grinding Van Norman's line of

s became very important in the bearing industry. Oscillating grinders were sold to many of the world's leading manufacturers of ball and roller bearings. Van Norman sold its precision external centerless grinder line to Bryant in 1972. The Van Norman rotary surface grinders, primarily used to resurface engine flywheels, are currently manufactured b
Irontite Products Inc.
as of 2014, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Irontite Products Inc. also purchased the rights to the Van Norman Brake Lathe line. They later stopped production of all brake lathes due to a dwindling market for resurfacing brake rotors and drums.

Spindle tooling

In keeping with many manufacturers of the era, some Van Norman machines use a proprietary spindle taper. The No. 6, No. 12, and some of the No. 16 ram type mills use what Van Norman referred to as their "C" taper ( Hardinge refers to this taper as 5V today). This taper was also used in some of Van Norman's smaller dividing heads and auxiliary milling subheads. Some of the larger machines use Van Norman's "No. 2" taper (Hardinge 50V), and some of the larger dividing heads and milling subheads use this taper as well. Larger machines used an assortment of tapers—earlier mills will most likely have either some size of

Brown & Sharpe Brown & Sharpe is a division of Hexagon AB, a Swedish multinational corporation focused mainly on metrological tools and technology. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Brown & Sharpe was one of the best-known and most influential machine tool bui ...

taper or Van Norman's "No. 2" taper. Later mills usually have NMTB milling machine tapers (30, 40, or 50, depending on machine size). It is probable that any machine could be ordered new with any taper the buyer desired.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Citation , author=National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors , year=2009 , title= nformation on Van Norman, collated from contemporary Waltham City Directories. , journal=NAWCC Bulletin , volume=51 , issue=382 , publisher=NAWCC , page=540 , url=http://www.nawcc.org/ , doi= , postscript=.

External links

Company history
* http://www.lathes.co.uk/vannorman/ * http://van-norman.com/ * https://irontite.com/ Machine tool builders Engineering companies of the United States Companies based in Massachusetts