arcticap
54 Cal.
I researched an antique gunsight made by the famous Collins Co. (a.k.a. Collins Ax Company) and came across the name and some of the works of Elisha K. Root. The readings suggest that he might have been a key figure that helped make Colt Firearms such a leading mass production operation.
He held many patents pertaining to milling machines and manufacturing processes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_K._Root
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3102242
He held many patents pertaining to milling machines and manufacturing processes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_K._Root
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3102242
Elisha K. Root
Samuel Colt was a captain of captains. The ablest mechanic and industrial organizer in New England at that time was Elisha K. Root. Samuel Colt went after him, outbidding every other bidder for his services, and brought him to Hartford to supervise the erection of the new factory and set up its machinery. Root was a great superintendent, and the phenomenal success of the Colt factory was due in a marked degree to him. He became president of the company after Colt's death in 1862, and under him were trained a large number of mechanics and inventors of new machine tools, who afterwards became celebrated leaders and officers in the industrial armies of the country.
http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/machine_4.htm[/quote]
Between 1800 and 1860 gun manufacturing became one of Connecticut's leading industries, and Connecticut was well on its way to becoming the arsenal of the nation. Gun manufacturing stimulated the development of improved machine tools and the growth of the state's machine tool industry in turn aided advances in gun manufacturing techniques. Simeon North (1763-1852) was a Middletown gun manufacturer who probably deserves the credit for developing in 1818 the nation's first plain milling machine. In 1836 Samuel Colt (1814-1862) conceived the idea for a repeating handgun whose rotating cylinder was turned by the action of the trigger. Colt appreciated the importance of developing machinery to produce standardized, interchangeable parts. In 1849 Colt hired machinist Elisha K. Root (b. Ludlow, Massachusetts; 1808-1865), who had designed the efficient machinery that made the axes of the Collins Company of Collinsville, Connecticut, famous throughout the world. Colt encouraged Root to mechanize revolver production whenever possible, and Root designed the advanced drop hammers, boring machines, gauges, jigs and fixtures that made the Colt revolver the first handgun in the world to be produced with truly interchangeable parts....
....Machine tools””lathes, milling machines, drill presses, planers, and grinding machines””are machines that shape the metal parts that are used in all machinery (including machine tools). By the Civil War, the United States had become a world leader in the design and production of machine tools. Connecticut inventors made crucial contributions to the development of machine tools. Working for Colt, Elisha K. Root made subtle, but important, changes in the advanced milling machine that had been developed by the Robbins and Lawrence Company in Vermont and by Francis A. Pratt (b. Woodstock, Vermont; 1827-1902) when Pratt was working at the George S. Lincoln firm in Hartford. The "Lincoln Miller" Root designed became the pre-eminent American machine tool of the last half of the nineteenth century, selling over 150,000 units.Another machinist-inventor who worked at the Colt plant, William Mason, secured more than 125 patents for innovations in machinery that made guns and parts for power looms and steam pumps....
http://www.ctheritage.org/encyclopedia/topicalsurveys/inventors.htm[/quote]
Is there more that can be learned about him and his achievements?
The Root revolving rifle:
The Root revolver:
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