Automation

In the early 1970s there was a lot of competition amongst tack manufacturers and prices fell. In order to cut production costs and keep ahead of the field Dennis Somerville decided to automate the tack machines, so reducing the number of people that were required to feed them and to maximise the output. This wasn’t as simple as it seems because the machines were built in-house and so there were no commercially available automatic feeds for them. All nail machines of the day were hand fed and so it was impossible to buy machines with an automatic feeding facility. The Crown Nail Company was breaking new ground, the only solution was to design and build an entirely new auto-feeding system.
A close-up view of one of the automatic feeds in operation. The magazine at the top holds between 100 and 150 of the steel strips, which are automatically fed into the press at the back.
By this time Ken Farrington had taken over as Works Manager and he was giving due consideration to the problem.

 He knew Ron Turner, a skilled toolmaker, and one evening over a drink he mentioned the problem to Ron, who decided to come and have a look for himself. 

After inspecting the machines Ron came up with a few ideas and Mr. Somerville gave him the go-ahead to develop a prototype. At the time Bob Hawks was employed in the fitting shop. He had a wonderful engineering background from his time at Guy Motors and he helped Ron to build the first few prototypes.

The first automatic feeds worked well, but there were still many problems to overcome. Each one was hand made and so was slightly different. It was decided to produce accurate drawings of all of the parts.

Ken Fencott, a designer from Fencott & Griffiths came along and helped Ron to produce a full set of drawings. Ron patented the auto-feed and Fencott & Griffiths manufactured them.


A row of tack machines fitted with automatic feeds.
An automatic feed is an upright magazine that holds between 100 and 150 strips of steel and automatically feeds them into the tack machine. They are pneumatically operated and allowed a girl to feed 15 machines instead of 5.
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