The history of Burke milling machines is not entirely clear. There seem to have been two general lines of small horizontal mills. The first of these ranged from the Burke No. 0 (a very small bench unit) through the Burke No. 4 (a small but potentially quite well equipped pedestal-mounted unit with an overarm). I presently believe that my own Burke milling machine is a No. 2. These are nice little machines; just the right size for the home or small shop.
Later, when the company had become "U.S. Burke," there seems to have been a line of sliding-head horizontal mills which used the same numbers. A U.S. Burke No. 2 is quite different from my Burke.
Burke also made the "Millrite" line of Bridgeport-style vertical milling machines.
There is a Yahoo! group, BurkeMills, devoted to these machines. (There's also a companion group, "BurkeMillsPix", just for photographs of Burke mill stuff.)
This present Notebook contains two sections:
The latter section has some miscellaneous items relating to the very early products of the Burke Machinery Company.
Burke Bench Millers (Brochure)
Burke Bench Millers and Accessories (Cincinnati, OH: The Burke Machine Tool Co., n.d.) Undated, but earlier than 1963 (before the introduction of ZIP codes). This brochure has been scanned by user "eengineer1" (James Benjamin) of the Yahoo! "BurkeMills" group and uploaded to the Files section of that group as PDFs of individual pages (Files -> Literature -> BurkeBenchMillerandAccessories).
Tantalizingly (for me), this brochure shows the No. 1, No. 3, No. 4, and No. 4 Universal, but not the No. 2.
Burke No. 4 Manual
The Burke No. 4 Milling Machine: Instruction and Parts Manual. (Cincinnati, OH: The Burke Machine Tool Co., n.d.) Undated, but no earlier than 1963 (the introduction of ZIP codes). This manual and illustrated parts list has been scanned by user "eengineer1" (James Benjamin) of the Yahoo! "BurkeMills" group and uploaded to the Files section of that group as PDFs of individual pages (Files -> Horizontal Mills -> The #4 Burke Milling Machine). He dates it to circa 1975.
Burke No. 4 Parts List
A parts list for "The No. 4 Burke Milling Machine" is available from D. C. Morrison Co. Confusingly, it has for its cover a version of the No. 4 manual's cover. It even says "Instruction and Parts Manual". It is, however, simply an illustrated parts list.
Army TM 9-3417-215-14&P (1981)
Technical Manual: Operator's, Organizational, Direct Support and General Support Maintenance Manual (Including Repair Parts List) for Milling Machine Model No. 4 (Burke Division Powermatic/Houdaille, Inc) . US Army Technical Manual TM 9-3417-215-14&P. 1981.
This manual, which is essentially the military version of the Burke No. 4 manual above, is online in several places. In particular, it is in both the Yahoo! BurkeMills group's Files section and in the Metalworking.com Dropbox, http://www.metalworking.com/dirsort.php?Sort=NameUp (both files are identical). The version here is just a copy of the file from the Metalworking.com dropbox.
Drive Shaft, Part B-5, Burke No. 4 (i.e. Spindle)
A scan of a fax of what would appear to be a a multigenerational photocopy of at least part of the original engineering drawing for the spindle ("Drive Shaft, Part B-5") of the Burke No. 4 Horizontal Mill, as obtained from D. C. Morrison, has been put online by user "mbiondo" (Michael Biondo) of the Yahoo! "BurkeMills" group and uploaded to the Files section of that group as a JPEG image (Files -> Reference -> VertArbor.jpg )
Burke No. 4 Front & Rear Seals
Measured drawings of the front and rear seals/bushings for the Burke No. 4 spindle appear in the Files section of the Yahoo! "BurkeMills" group. These were done in 2001 by C. Young and uploaded by user "youngcj3" in 2002. These drawings present some issues, however, They are done in "rich text format" (".rtf") and attempts to open them with current (2012) versions of LibreOffice produce truncated drawings. There are also JPEG versions of these drawings, also by "youngcj3," but while these show the entire drawing they are low resolution and not always entirely legible. Here's what I had to do to view the originals: It would seem that the original drawings specified a relatively large page size (I'm not entirely sure what size) in landscape format. LibreOffice overlays a US Letter portrait-format page on this and truncates the drawing. So open the ".rtf" drawing in LibreOffice and go to "Format -> Page" and then to the "Page" tab. There, choose a larger page size (either "Tabloid" (11x17) or A3 work, though they are actually both too large) and landscape orientation. Apply, and the drawing should be visible in its entirety (or at least it was for me). To get a PDF version, save the drawing in ".odt" (LibreOffice writer) format. Then exit LibreOffice and restart it, reopening the ".odt" file. Then Export-as-PDF. (With LibreOffice 3.4.4, at least, attempting to export as PDF without first saving and restarting resulted in a creatively different cropping of the drawing.) Then print a copy on acid-free paper because none of these formats will be readable in 20 years.
Burke No. 4 Vertical Head by Jim B
The Yahoo! BurkeMills group File section also has a document with the filename "Burke Vertical Head by Jim B" uploaded by user "im_all_thumbz". The format of this document is difficult to determine, and it won't display in ordinary circumstances. It turns out that it is a Microsoft Word Version 9 document, saved without any file suffix. As such it can be loaded by LibreOffice. However, when loaded most of the text overlaps itself. The solution to this is to load the document into LibreOffice and highlight/select all of the text in the document. Then in the little formatting pulldown you select "clear formatting". What results is something with the formatting defaults for your version of LibreOffice which is probably readable. Then save this file in LibreOffice ".odt" format and/or export to PDF.
Bench Milling Machine (1905)
Modern Machinery. Vol. 17, No. 5 (May, 1905): 231 & 242. This advertisement (p. 231) and press release (p. 242) would seem to mark the introduction of something very much like the Burke No. 1 horizontal milling machine. By way of comparison, its movements are given as 5 1/2" longitudinal, 2 1/2" traverse, 5" vertical. The corresponding dimensions on the later Burke No. 1 are 8" x 3 3/8" x 4 1/2" (see the brochure scanned by James Benjamin, above). The Burke Machinery Company address is given as 15 Power Street, Cleveland, OH.
For those who prefer PDFs, here is a PDF version of the press release (which just encapsulates the page scan): modern-machinery-v017-n05-1905-05-p0242-img0250-burke-bench-mill-announcement.pdf
The image here has been extracted from the page scans presented by The Hathi Trust of the Google digitization of the University of Michigan's copy of this journal. The Hathi Trust ID for this volume is mdp.39015080075834.
No. 1 1/2 Tapping Machine (1905)
"The No. 1 1/2 Tapping Machine." Machinery Vol. 11, No. 12 (August, 1905): 119 (This volume was simultaneously Vol. 3 No. 12 of the Engineering Edition of Machinery). An advertisement.
Coal Oil Furnace (1905)
Modern Machinery. Vol. 18, No. 5 (November, 1905): 287. I believe that this is an atmospheric heat treating furnace for general shop use. Recall that in 1905 most lathe and planer tools were still forged.
The image here has been extracted from the page scans presented by The Hathi Trust of the Google digitization of the University of Michigan's copy of this journal. The Hathi Trust ID for this volume is mdp.39015080075834.
No. 4 Mill Introduction (1905)
Modern Machinery. Vol. 18, No. 6 (December, 1905): 341.
The image here has been extracted from the page scans presented by The Hathi Trust of the Google digitization of the University of Michigan's copy of this journal. The Hathi Trust ID for this volume is mdp.39015080075834.
Malterner Shaper (1907)
"The Malterner Hand Shaper." The Metal Worker, Plumber and Steam Fitter [later Sanitary and Heating Age]. Vol. 68, [no issue number] (Saturday, August 10, 1907): 73. An American hand-powered metal shaper, designed by S. N. Malterner and manufactured by the Burke Machinery Company, Cleveland, OH. It is not clear from this article whether the Burke company participated in the sale of this machine or simply manufactured it for the inventor.
The first image at left links to a PDF of this page of the journal, extracted from the Google Books digitization of the University of Michigan copy. The second image at left links to the version of the same digitization as presented by The Hathi Trust. This volume of the journal has the Hathi Trust identifier: mdp.39015024388509. It probably doesn't make any difference, but the Hathi Trust version is higher-resolution.
Vertical Slotting Attachment (1909)
"Slotting Attachment for the Burke Milling Machine." Machinery. Vol. 15, No. 6 (March, 1909): 559. A vertical slotting attachment with a 1 inch stroke.
The image at left links to a PDF of this page of the journal, extracted from the Internet Archive digitization of the University of Toronto copy. For the original, in many formats including raw page scans, see http://www.archive.org/details/machinery15newy
[Move to Conneaut, 1910]
A brief notice in the journal Industrial World (March 14, 1910), p. 319, indicates that the Burke Machinery Company had just moved to Conneaut, OH.
"The Burke Machinery Company, manufacturer of machine tools, has moved to its new plant at Conneaut, Ohio, with about double the capacity of the former plant. The company has also issued a new catalog in which are presented views of a number of the tools manufactured, revised price list, and a general line of information."
US Patent 993,150 (1911; Saw)
US patent 993,150, issue 1911-05-23 to George H. Burke of Euclid, Ohio, assigned to the Burke Machinery Company of Cleveland, Ohio. "Metal Cutting Saw." Filed 1908-05-21 as application serial number 434,074.
All of the material reproduced in the "Burke History" section was published in the US before 1923 and is therefore in the public domain.
The Army technical manual reprinted here is a US federal government publication and therefore in the public domain by law. US patent specifications are in the public domain by law.
All portions of this document not noted otherwise are Copyright © 2012 by David M. MacMillan and Rollande Krandall.
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