The
Following is an explanation of what history items have been located from
Boston
Ma.
The Ashton whistle drawings, bills of
material, and foundry specifications were recovered from 14 rolls of 35 mm
filmstrip. These film rolls appear to be dated to 1937 they seem to be a
complete copy of all drawings on file at that time. A complete cataloged list
of all Ashton whistle drawings and bills of material is made available through
the web site only, and prints of all are available by mail
order only.
Crosby
Steam Gage and Valve Co.
Boston
Ma.
This
project is being conducted on my own time.
No
bills of materials survive save 2 or 3. So the search began by sitting down to
the aperture card machine and seeing what drawings survived. The aperture card
file first began in the 1970’s and at that time all surviving paper and cloth
drawings were photographed and place on negatives. After searching through 40
years worth of drawings about 750 whistle drawings were located and retrieved
to paper and scanned to printable files. They are all made available through
the web site by mail order only. (ONLY PARTS MARKED WITH (
D&PC ) IN FIRST COLUMN ARE AVAILABLE) (all prints are on 13 X 19 quality paper. (warning if you order a drawing of a nut
expect a drawing of a nut)
After
cataloging these drawings it was apparent that there is a percentage of
drawings missing. Luckily the parts card file was found to be better than 99%
intact. Searching the part card file produced a more complete catalog of the
Crosby whistle product line.
This is a large page. If you are on dial up service give it time to load. Saving this would be a convenience.
Each drawing was catalogued
into the list. Information from the drawings on the list in columns are:
Ø
part number
Ø
pattern number
Ø
drawing or trace date
Ø
whistle size
Ø
cup style
Ø
description
Ø
special notes
The
part cards added:
Ø
part card dates
Ø
replaces part number
Ø
replaced by part number
Ø
material composition
The
part card date in the list relates to the replaces and replaced part numbers.
If a replaced by part number is listed then the date is the date the part was
superceded. The replaces part numbers on a number of cards have dates, but a
new column was not added for them. If a replaces number is shown and no
replaced by then the date shown is the date the part was instituted.
In
all cases if a drawing was missing I included as much information as possible
on the catalogue listing from the part card. (the additional is in available
blank spaces on that row) A good number of the so called missing drawings may
not actually have ever existed in the first place. Many specials and prototypes
may have only had hand sketches for parts that traveled with the orders paper
work.
The column marked bell/code contains a sorting number, which in the case of the chimes is the cup number( 1,2,3 )
4 is a code for organ whistles
5 is a code for compound auto whistle valves
5.5
is code for globe valve type whistle valve
6 is code for automatic compound whistle
valves
5 and 6 seam to blend a bit
7 is a code for hand and electric operated
whistle valves
8 is code for balanced piston whistle valves
9 no nine
10 long bell commons built after 1915. 6 inch 8 inch and 10 inch size
11 is a code for a whistle recording device. (don’t know if ever built)
no code = Both drawing and part card do not contain a description as to what whistle they went too, also in the case of electrical components shared for automatics
Many
parts have multiple listings of used on whistles. The list in this case has a
part row for each whistle it was used on and the size and code columns altered
for each different whistle. By coding and multi entries, performing a search by
size column then code column and then by part description gives the sorted list
that you see here. The sorting gives us a rough bill of materials for each item
over the years. Some shared parts with other Crosby products may still be
missing.
Crosby’s
part numbering system began in 1900 with the part number matching the drawing
number. Hence a retrace of then current product drawings began, this I believe
continued for 10 years. The old drawing numbers are crossed out on the part
cards. Some of the old numbers have been included in the list, but a portion of
them I did not record and is incomplete as yet. If a listing in the Catalog has
an entry in the old drawing number column then that part was created before
1900 with the drawings showing the date that it was traced from the old
prints. References to the old drawing
number on part cards for the most part ends around 1910, and all part numbers
after then being new parts.
It
seems that the old Crosby common whistles were not traced to new drawings and
allowed to fade away. Chime whistles being the focus of whistle business with
others were traced to new drawings. Of course new developments also appear as
years go by.
YOUR
SUPPORT BY ORDERING DRAWINGS WILL ALLOW ME TO CONTINUE RECOVERY OF THE MANY
OTHER FACINATING PRODUCTS OF YEARS GONE BY
(
Many more products are underway, give me some time. )
The
foundry specs were found in an engineer’s notebook that miraculously survived
from the twenties. Five note books one of which contained information on the
foundry specs current in1923. The current system of material identification was
first issued in 1939, and had most of the early compositions dropped from the
listing. This engineer also did some work on the whistles and has a section
devoted to his dealings at that time with the whistles.
Enjoy
the site
Thank You
Craig B.