We have this cylindrical saw that’s 13 ½” in diameter. Naturally, everyone who sees it thinks, “giant hole saw.” But it’s probably not. A number of years ago, a visitor […]

Written by John Alexander, Collections Technician Sometimes, these artifacts are the most satisfying, sometimes the most frustrating. Our founder, Ed Battison, was a passionate collector but sometimes not the most […]

By John Alexander, Collections Technician Gear shapers are curious machines. They are straightforward in operation, but people often misunderstand because it’s hard to explain clearly. I hope this can help. […]

By John Alexander, Collections Technician Various pieces of wood in the structure of the Museum’s building show signs of being worked on an unusual type of planing machine. (I’ve found […]

Things have changed so much. It used to be that all window frames were made of wood except some iron ones in industrial situations. Now, even wooden framed windows have […]

Written by John Alexander, Collections Technician This machine was found by Jamie Swan, a longtime friend of the Museum, in a shed near a swamp in Connecticut. It didn’t look […]

Written by John Alexander, Collections Technician • jalexander@americanprecision.org My choice of this machine was confirmed right away. I looked in a box of books sitting next to my desk and […]

Written by John Alexander, Collections Technician The sight of an old catalog for Barnes lathes led to this month’s article. The company was founded in 1872 as the W. F. […]

Our Museum has deep connections to this machine. In 1828 Asahel Hubbard patented the first gear pump. After starting to manufacture his pump in Proctorville, a nearby community, Hubbard was […]

This all starts way back, and it starts here! After the Civil War (1865) American Precision Museum’s building became a cotton mill. It and the machine-making shops across Mill Brook […]

The Machine of the Month is Model Number 10 A, manufactured by Bryant Chucking Grinder of Springfield, VT. The Number 10 A introduced a unique method of moving the grinding […]

Some visitors spend some time around this machine before they realize that it’s a lathe. That’s because we use the rear half of its bed as a bench to display […]

Rudolph Fredrick Bannow (1897-1962) left Sweden for the United States when he was 13 to join his family in Massachusetts. He completed his grammar school education in Holyoke and then […]