The Lees-Bradner Company (1906-1967) was organized in 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio, as a partnership between Ernest J. Lees (d. 1937) and Hosea Townsend Bradner (1872-1963) and incorporated in 1909. Lees had been one of the founders, with George Collings, Jr. and Carl Blossom, of the Grant-Lees Machine Company of Cleveland. Bradner held stock in Grant-Lees, sold machines, and contracted with automotive sources to produce timing gears. Lees, who held basic patents in gear hobbing machines, and Bradner eventually left Grant-Lees. They went into partnership in 1906 with the intent of designing a smaller diameter capacity, very heavy pitch capacity gear hobbing machine aimed at the automotive market.
The partners recognized the growth potential of the automotive industry. H. T. Bradner concentrated his sales efforts in this field, where many machines were sold for the production of timing and transmission gears. Lees designed the No. 5 Gear Generator for hobbing spur spiral and worm gears and threading worm, the company's first successful product, introduced in 1907. Bradner sold the first machine produced to Cross Gear Company of Detroit. The 5, the first traveling work slide machine, was popular from its inception. Available cutters (hobs) were not very good so Lees-Bradner introduced its own, the first ground form hob of the inserted blade type. Earlier steels and gears warped badly, so Bradner pioneered the first successful reduction-to-practice means to grind gears after hardening, the Lees-Bradner No. 10 Gear Tooth Grinder.
Lees-Bradner needed a thread miller and created its own, which was so good that a market for it emerged. Lees-Bradner was a pioneer in the art of generating threads via the ring or hob type thread milling processes. Lees-Bradner's first thread miller, built in 1910, was retained by the Company and used until 1941, when it was rebuilt and sold to a customer.
Before World War I, Bradner realized the possibilities of export. He was a frequent visitor abroad and was one of the pioneers responsible for the acceptance of American machine tools overseas. As early as 1912, at a time when the main flow of machine tools was from Europe to this country, Lees-Bradner was selling machines to Great Britain, France, Russia, and Japan. With the outbreak of hostilities in Europe there was a demand for shell thread milling machines. A successful ring or hob-style thread milling machine was developed by Lees-Bradner for milling internal threads in shells produced for the British Government. A total of 1,000 were sold before this design became obsolete. By 1916, liquidity of the new company was good and H. T. Bradner paid Lees $200,000 cash for his stock, with Lees staying on as president. Lees retired after the war, and died in 1937.
In 1919 Lees-Bradner developed the first successful gear tooth grinding machine and, in the 1920s, developed its rotary gear finisher which pioneered the gear shaving art. Basic patents in both of these lines were sold in the 1930s. The first gear tester offered by a manufacturer of gear generators was introduced in 1922. This instrument accurately checked gear involute profile and tooth-to-tooth spacing. Lees-Bradner patented the rotary hobber in 1924 and developed and patented the rapid differential ten years later. Bradner's vision created the rotary hobbing machine principle.
By 1934 Lees-Bradner was down to 3 employees. Bradner moved from equities to gold to silver to commodities in order to make sure the company had the cash required to remain viable during the Great Depression. In the late 1930s he was ready for build-up in machine tool production as England and France prepared for World War II. During the war Lees-Bradner built only thread milling machines and manufactured about half of the those required for the Allied war effort. H. T. Bradner retired after World War II. The company was reorganized and Bradner's sons, John A., George T., and James H., took over the reins of the company. They anticipated the post-war consumer demand for automobiles. Sales were concentrated on high production rotary hobbers for auto manufacturers both domestically and abroad. In the years following the war, foreign sales often exceeded domestic.
Since World War II Lees-Bradner has built and delivered over 3,000 hobbing spindles. In the machine tool industry there are four commercial ways to make an involute shape: press it, roll it, shape it, or hob it. Lees-Bradner made gear hobbing machines and thread milling machines for standard and special applications, including horizontal machines, vertical machines, and machines for high production. The company produced general production machines, but was best known for its high production machines for the automotive industry. They made thread millers and gear cutters which travel the work, as well as those which travel the hob. Patented gear hobbing machine developments by Lees-Bradner include the double differential machine, tuneable flywheel, electric in-out mechanism, dual differential, the hydraulic drive HY-Drive and the fluid in/out. The original No. 5 Gear Generator cut a helical gear by the hobbing process with what is referred to kinematically as plus 1. Before World War II, the automotive industry was buying Lees-Bradner single and rotary gear hobbing machines with a differential--the rapid traverse differential. The company produced gear hobbing machines with a rapid traverse differential and a lead differential, what is called a double differential machine. The most advanced product, introduced in 1965, was the dual differential Universal 5A, which could play two roles: gear (spline) hobbing and thread (worm) milling.
In 1966, Lees-Bradner had over $5 million in sales, with over 200 employees represented by Mechanics Educational Society of America (MESA) Local 19 AFL-CIO. The company manufactured gear hobbing machines, precision thread millers, and spline hobbing machines sold to the automotive, truck, farm implement, home appliance, machine tool and aviation industries in the United States and abroad. Its standard line of gear hobbing machines included both single-spindle and multiple-spindle rotary type units capable of cutting spur, helical, and worm gears up to 18" in diameter. These machines were exceptionally well suited to the machining of integral gears on automotive cam shafts. By 1967, some 90% of automotive cam shaft gears were hobbed on Lees-Bradner machines. A second major machine tool line included thread milling machines which offered threading leads ranging from 1/32" to 60" per spindle revolution. Typical work pieces threaded on these machines included precision lead screws and aircraft engine, propeller and strut components. The 5A Universal which converted from a gear hobbing machine to a precision thread miller in less than 30 minutes was the newest and most advanced product in the Lees-Bradner line.
White Consolidated Industries (WCI) of Cleveland acquired Lees-Bradner through a cash purchase in 1967. The acquisition was part of White's programmed growth in the machine tool field. Lees-Bradner became a subsidiary of White, a leader in machinery and equipment, valves and controls, home and industrial sewing machines and industrial supplies, with manufacturing plants and operating facilities throughout the United States and Canada and total annual sales of $180 million. John A. Bradner remained as president of Lees-Bradner and George A. Viscomi remained as vice president of sales. Viscomi had joined Lees-Bradner in 1942 and moved into management from the shop floor. He became president and general manager in 1969. In 1968, White Consolidated acquired Blaw-Knox of Pittsburgh and Bullard Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Lees-Bradner manufacturing plant at Elmwood Avenue and West 121st Street in Cleveland was closed by White in 1975, leaving about 30 employees without jobs, and operations were moved to White's Fayscott Division in Dexter, Maine. Lees-Bradner gear hobbing machines and Fayscott operations were consolidated with the Bullard Company 1982, the Lees-Bradner name was dropped, and the 18" gear hobber was marketed under the Bullard brand name. By 1983 the Lees-Bradner company and name no longer existed and production had been transferred to Bullard in Connecticut. The Bullard operation merged with White Sundstrand Division into the WCI Machine Tools and Systems Company, headquartered in Cincinnati, in 1985. White Consolidated was purchased by A. B. Electrolux of Sweden in 1986, the headquarters of White's appliance operation was moved from Cleveland to Columbus, and White became a wholly owned subsidiary of Electrolux. The Fayscott Division in Maine was sold in 1986, part of White's goal to divest its Reid surface grinder and Lees-Bradner gear hobber machinery lines. Fayscott reinstated the Lees-Bradner name and the machines marketed today under that name incorporate the latest technology and electronic controls. George T. Bradner (1916- ) joined the company in 1941, became secretary-treasurer and vice president of operations after H. T. Bradner retired, and was elected president in 1960. He resigned as director of finance in 1967, and remained for one year as a consultant. He was a graduate of University School and Yale University Sheffield Scientific School (B.S. 1938). He served as member, trustee or director of several civic organizations, including the Cleveland Center on Alcoholism, Mayor's Committee for the Physically Handicapped (1952-1953), Occupational Planning Committee of the Department of Welfare, Lakewood Shakespeare Festival, Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerce Lakewood, Mayfield Country Club, Philosophical Club, Sunshine Charities, Lakewood Historical Society, Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve, the Western Reserve Historical Society, the Ripon Club, and the Lakewood Republican Club. He married Frances Kellerher and lived in Lakewood. He was chairman of the National Machine Tool Builders Association Sales and Service Committee, and after retiring from Lees-Bradner in 1968 was a self-employed financial consultant.
The Lees-Bradner Company Records (1905-1992) consist of articles of incorporation, minutes, a company history, agreements, stock certificates, financial reports, ledgers, correspondence, administrative reports, memoranda, catalogs, product detail sheets, advertisements, newspaper clippings, and publications.
This collection is of interest to scholars of the history of American business and technology, especially of the machine tool industry that developed in Cleveland, Ohio. The corporate minutes document the years of growth and development of the Lees-Bradner Company under H. T. Bradner. Financial reports and executive reports, with some scattered correspondence and clippings, document the diversification and growth of the company under the leadership of his sons after World War II. The product line is well illustrated by catalogs and product detail sheets. There is little record of the company's activities after its 1967 acquisition by White Consolidated, except for some newspaper clippings. Publications, clippings, catalogs and correspondence relate to the machine tool industry, its history, and some individuals and organizations.
The collection is arranged in two series.
The researcher should also consult PG 462 Lees-Bradner Company Photographs.
Processed by Ann B. Ameling in 1993.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4653 Lees-Bradner Company Records, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
George T. Bradner, 1993.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.