History of Monarch Machine Tools

John Legge has sent me, for publication as a PDF, his detailed and interesting "Time Line History of the Monarch Machine Tool Company".
It's on all the Monarch Pages as a hyperlink - and can be reached here: http://www.lathes.co.uk/monarch/monarch-History.pdf
Tony.

Thank you very much John for producing this very valuable piece of work. Thank you very much Tony for making it readily available to us.
David

I will second the thanks.

Great info!!

Very good to read, thanks.

Thank you. A great story with a sad ending...

Thank you for your work.

Is it known why the name 'Monarch' was chosen?

That's a very interesting read. It could do with proof reading though. I'm not an English language expert but I spotted several typos. " Broachers " for brochures is just one example. Thanks for the article though, I found it enthralling.

Regards Tyrone.

It looks like John Oder was right on dating my Monarch lathe # B 1434 according to the information in the history of Monarch.

Tyrone Shoelaces said:

That's a very interesting read. It could do with proof reading though. I'm not an English language expert but I spotted several typos. " Broachers " for brochures is just one example. Thanks for the article though, I found it enthralling.

Regards Tyrone.

Click to expand...

The Author apologizes for all errors. I've sent out more corrected version to the few that have it on their sites. Which I hope they would post a link to in a new thread so it can become a sticky.

jlegge said:

The Author apologizes for all errors. I've sent out more corrected version to the few that have it on their sites. Which I hope they would post a link to in a new thread so it can become a sticky.

Click to expand...

That's great news. The article is excellent in my opinion, I'm glad it's being polished up.

Regards Tyrone.

Made this thread sticky. I'd be happy to host a copy of the document on my pages if thats desired.

Interesting...

June, engineering work started on the Model EE lathe. This is to be a 10” tool
room lathe with a hydraulic controlled variable speed headstock. Monarch
worked with Western Electric Co. of Chicago to develop this lathe. Western
wrote the initial specifications for this tool room lathe. Monarch invested nearly
$100,000 in the development of the EE.

Click to expand...

That's about 1.8mil today. I bet they got their money back.

jlegge said:

The Author apologizes for all errors. I've sent out more corrected version to the few that have it on their sites. Which I hope they would post a link to in a new thread so it can become a sticky.

Click to expand...

In the manuscript many mentions are made of the 12" C and the 12" K, but I haven't seen anything about a 12CK. Same for the 16"CW.

So what is actually designated by the C or K letters?

Cole2534 said:

In the manuscript many mentions are made of the 12" C and the 12" K, but I haven't seen anything about a 12CK. Same for the 16"CW.

So what is actually designated by the C or K letters?

Click to expand...

The "C" designation means the machine was built as a tool room lathe. K, A, B, W etc. was the catalog size of the lathe. A "CK" is a 12" K lathe built for toolroom use. In your example of a 16" "CW" is a W lathe built for toolroom use. I believe we see so many "C" or toolroom lathes from the WWII days is that the production lathe were used harder than the toolroom lathes, but just my guess.

John L.

jlegge said:

The "C" designation means the machine was built as a tool room lathe. K, A, B, W etc. was the catalog size of the lathe. A "CK" is a 12" K lathe built for toolroom use. In your example of a 16" "CW" is a W lathe built for toolroom use. I believe we see so many "C" or toolroom lathes from the WWII days is that the production lathe were used harder than the toolroom lathes, but just my guess.

John L.

Click to expand...

That makes sense. All the 3 shift machines were probably worn to the bone long ago.

Thanks John!

I recently found a Monarch dating back to the 40s here in Gent Belgium. It had a plate on it identifying it as property of the US army.



the name plate


don't know anything about its history .. how it got to Belgium is a mystery

vulcan_ said:

don't know anything about its history .. how it got to Belgium is a mystery

Click to expand...

Vulcan -

After WW2 through the early 90s there was a significant US military presence in Europe (which I am sure you are aware of), including up to depot level repair for the Army element. Also included what became POMCUS - Prepositioning Of Material Configured in Unit Sets - large warehousing facilities of equipment that was 'ready to go' in support of NATO CENTAG (Central Army Group). Concept of that was to fly personnel into 'bare base' setups in Belgium, Germany and other places who would grab the equipment and go to war. Think it got up to 3 division sets of equipment with 6 or 7 planned with some support stuff as well before the wall came down. Long winded way of saying there was a significant repair and maintenance support operation connected with that, as well as all the other US forces in the neighborhood. Lathe might well have ended up supporting such operations - not in a military unit but in what was effort by local civilian employees of the US government that took care of most of it.

I was part of the generation that on occasion flew into one of those bare bases and then 'went to the woods' in Germany. Matter of fact I was there for the last one of that era - REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany)92 in September of 1992. Was part of 130th Engineer Brigade out of Hanau. Seemed like the weather was always raining and middle of the night when we arrived on one of those bare base airfields in Belgium. Big open field with an airstrip having minimal operating capability. Long time ago now. Thankfully never had to make the trip for real.

Dale