Jacobs Chuck History & Identification

[AntiqueBen]

For some reason I've always been fascinated with older model chucks, the Jacobs chucks in particular. Anytime I've seen a deal, I've picked them up even though I didn't need them. I'm curious to learn more about the history of Jacobs & the different styles they produced & their purpose. I know Jacobs patented his first chuck in 1902, which leads me to more questions. Which style was the first? Are there certain chucks that are more rare than others?

I recently picked up a Jacobs 3A stamped Hartford Connecticut & the patent date of September 16, 1902. I noticed mine has a horizontal line going through the knurling which is different than most of the others I'm seeing online. I'm wandering where this falls in the line of early Jacobs chucks? Is there an online reference that shows the Jacobs chuck line starting with the first? I would like to find out more, so share your pics & information on your Jacobs chucks.

 

[JohntheKDguy]

I can't answer your questions about the rarity or dates certain models were made but I thought I would interject here. You'll understand why shortly.
I started with Easco/KD Tools in May of 88. When the owner changed the name to Danaher Tool Group (1991) was near the time when we took over Jacobs Chuck. I had to go to the Clemson SC plant with our QA manager to learn as much as possible in three days. I had to learn to do repairs and certification processes for the Percission chucks which were manufactured by a company in Spain called Albrecht. It was a very interesting experience. The average employee there had 25 to 30 years seniority I was told. This building was built for Jacobs and had two additions to the building since then. This place was running three shifts back then.
All of the manufacturing stayed in place at Clemson when we took control of Jacobs. All we were doing was packaging and distribution of the Jacobs product from our distribution center here in Maryland. By 2010 when Cooper had bought out Danaher, a plant in China was opened to manufacture all of the Jacobs chucks and Clemson was closed.
I want to make a point here about things you read on the internet. There is a lot of misinformation out there. The current Jacobs website even has dates that are completely wrong. The site has a timeline that I disagree with. When I was down there I was told that manufacturing was moved from Hartford CT to Clemson in 1948. The website has the year as 1959. It also has the date of 1986 for the Danaher takeover which is not at all possible when Danaher Tool did not even exist until '91.
Moving right along, I wanted to show you all this cool crate I got at an auction about twenty five years ago. No lid for it unfortunately.

 

[four.cycle]

thanks for starting the thread, Ben.

looking forward to seeing what comes out of the woodwork.

 

[AntiqueBen]

Your right John. I have found a lot of misleading info about when Jacobs chucks started being made in China. The dates from the 80's forward is all over the place. I appreciate you sharing this information. It helps us to better understand what happened to Jacobs & it's unfortunate move to overseas production. It's a real shame. I have several old drill presses & other tools with Jacobs chucks & they are excellent quality. Of course they were from the good old days when they were made here in the US. Awesome box. Nice find.

 

[AntiqueBen]

Thanks four cycle. I thought the quality Jacobs chucks deserved some attention. I hope to see some pics of other Jacob chuck models & hopefully learn something along the way.

 

[MShaw]

I interviewed at Jacobs in Hartford in the late 1960s or early 1970s Memory is a little foggy on the exact date. They were still in Hartford then.

 

[FrankLee]

I've got an early Jacobs 6A chuck with the crosshatch knurling on the sleeve.

 

[JohntheKDguy]

I sure don't understand why someone in management would have told me 1948. That's strange.

 

[four.cycle]

Jacobs / Jacobs Mfg. Co., Hartford, CT / http://www.jacobschuck.com/ / est. 1902 acquired by Danaher 1986 acquired by Apex Tool Group 2010 / drill chuck / patent 709014 Sep 16 1902 Arthur I. Jacobs / http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=2864 / https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/jacobs-chuck-history-identification.523136/ /

see also

https://www.liquisearch.com/chuck_engineering/history

Chuck – ManufacturingET.org

www.manufacturinget.org

(also re: Patent 709014 https://archive.org/stream/adjpatentssuppl00undeiala/adjpatentssuppl00undeiala_djvu.txt )

I am not an attorney and at this point am completely flummoxed.

... this is really quite the rabbit hole.

 

[AntiqueBen]

Wow. This from the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1910 is an interesting read. It's like they are saying Jacobs 1902 patent is invalid or void. I guess because there were chucks already in existence & all Jacobs did was add the teeth & key option for tightening & loosening the object in the chuck. They said this addition alone was enough to patent because the rest of the chuck & how it works already existed. Pretty interesting. Wander what patent they manufactured their early chucks under? The more history I Iook up about Jacobs, the more confusing & contradictory it becomes.

 

[AntiqueBen]

The other patents from A.I. Jacobs in 1909 & 1915 make no sense to me See Here

I see no other patents or patent revisions after the 1910 Court of Appeals fiasco. I guess they were able to use the 1902 patent date because they eventually worked it all out in court, some say in 1911. Who knows at this point. This truly is a deep rabbit hole

 

[AntiqueBen]

Ran across another bit of interesting info. Here is a 1915 publication using the term "void" referring to Jacobs 1902 patent. So was this still not cleared up in 1915?

 

[four.cycle]

^ That is a question for datamp.org or someone who knows more about patent law.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what happened there... but all I've read thus far was the first ruling that I posted just above.
Yes, some of those drag on for years. See Coes.
And some companies have shown propensities for being "sue happy" (see Aronson.)

I'll have to look at the documents you've unearthed there.

One of the many fascinating aspects of vintage tool collecting is delving into these legal entanglements on patents - when you start chasing down the citations in the suits they lead off to other inventors and devices which may or may not have actually been put into production, or were in fact precursors to something which became a popular "thing" later on.

This is the kind of stuff the guys at datamp.org get excited about - it's definitely a break from the humdrum.

 

[AntiqueBen]

Good info four cycle. The historical story behind vintage tools I always find interesting, but in Jacobs case, somewhat confusing. It's amazing how many different tool manufacturers used Jacobs as their OEM chuck. I realized my old Thor U44 drill has a Jacobs 33B chuck. My Craftsman 150 Drill press also has a Jacobs.

 

[paulsomlo]

I had to learn to do repairs and certification processes for the Percission chucks which were manufactured by a company in Spain called Albrecht.

Thankfully, Danaher didn't buy Albrecht, meaning one can still buy a high quality chuck made by people who care.

 

[four.cycle]

Brian-

I'm familiar with the Almond-Jacobs patent lawsuit. It is alluded to in our entry for T. R. Almond, especially in the long quotation from 1911 under "Information Sources":

T. R. Almond - History vintagemachinery.org

Basically Jacobs patented the chuck tightened with a key, where the key fits into a socket in the chuck body. Rotating the key turns a gear engaged with a rack on the edge of a sleeve around the chuck body; the sleeve rotates which in turn moves the jaws. The idea of a keyed chuck was not new, nor was the use of jaws moving along ramps in the chuck body. Even the use of a sleeve was not new, but putting rack teeth along its edge was new, and using a blind hole in the chuck body in which the chuck key could rotate was new. The combination of old and new features created a chuck that had better centering and better tightening than previous chucks, at least chucks of comparable cost.

Patent courts tend to recognize when a patent represents a significant advance, and such patents are interpreted more broadly than a patent which represents a modest incremental advance. The difference can be discerned where the latter "incremental" patent only covers a specific combination of features to achieve an effect. If a competitor changes one feature of that combination then they are not infringing. However, in the former case where the patent represents a significant advancement, there's a good chance that such a change will not avoid a finding of infringement. As ever when laws and judges and lawyers are involved, the devil is in the details and the results are not always perfectly consistent.

At the time Jacob obtained his patent, he did not have a manufacturing capability and he offered to sell his design to T. R. Almond, who turned it down, so Jacobs invested in manufacturing capabilities and started manufacturing his design himself. It quickly became successful. Mr. Almond sold his business to his treasurer, Carlton Hubbell. Hubbell quickly had his designers create a near-exact copy of the Jacobs chuck that flagrantly infringed the Jacobs patent. Jacobs sued the T. R. Almond Co., and won. But T. R. Almond Co. advertisements applied that they had won, and Jacobs retaliated by lambasting them in ads running opposite the T. R. Almond ads.

Hope that helps! I have spent too much time reading judgments in patent lawsuits. I am definitely not a lawyer so I can only hope that I have not misrepresented anything.

Jeff

so there you go.... the next rabbit hole is:

Almond / T.R. Almond Mfg. Co., 8 Maple Ave., Ashburhham, MA (Fitchburg) / est. 1874 / drill chuck / patent 141978 Aug 19 1873 Thomas R. Almond / http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1745&tab=0 / https://www.datamp.org/patents/search/xrefCompany.php?id=7660 /

 

[AntiqueBen]

I knew this thread would produce some good information. I found a great article in Iron Age dated June 25, 1903. This would have been 9 months after the 1902 patent. It describes the Jacobs chuck & even gives us the dimensions of the first chuck produced & the dimensions of the first key. The first chuck was small. The article says Jacobs intentions was to make larger ones in the near future. Attached is a pic of the article I enlarged.

 

[AntiqueBen]

I know this may sound like a dumb question, but was the first Jacobs chuck a No. 1?

 

[AntiqueBen]

Well, I may have answered my own question. Doing some late night research & ran across some interesting Jacobs ads. An October 1907 Horseless Age ad shows all the Jacob chuck models. The No. 1 might be the only one that measures 1 5/8" in diameter, so it could possibly be the first size that Jacobs made. I found some other good ads. Pics attached.

 

[Mintgrun]

I have a No. 30B, which has a 1-5/8" OD. It's on this old Van Dorn drill that I pulled out of the Habitat scrap bin. They cut the cords off of all the tools they toss in there, but I put a plug on it and it still works. I didn't realize it had a 1913 patent date until I got it home and cleaned it off. (This is one tool I sort of wish I'd left dirty. It looked 200 years old when I found it).





The chuck says 0-5/16", but it will take a 21/64" drill bit, so they just 'simplified' the fraction when they stamped it. The branding and patent information placement is different than the drawing in post #17 and it has multiple patent dates, but aside from that, it looks the same.

A K30 chuck key seems to fit pretty well.

Tom

 

[Mintgrun]

Here's a two-jaw tap-chuck No. 255, which says Patent Applied For. Googling did not bring up any hits.

 

[Mike'smeatshop]

Well, I may have answered my own question. Doing some late night research & ran across some interesting Jacobs ads. An October 1907 Horseless Age ad shows all the Jacob chuck models. The No. 1 might be the only one that measures 1 5/8" in diameter, so it could possibly be the first size that Jacobs made. I found some other good ads. Pics attached.

Very good detective work.

 

[humber2]

Here’s a page from an undated Jacobs Catalog

 

[humber2]

I have a No. 30B, which has a 1-5/8" OD. It's on this old Van Dorn drill that I pulled out of the Habitat scrap bin. They cut the cords off of all the tools they toss in there, but I put a plug on it and it still works. I didn't realize it had a 1913 patent date until I got it home and cleaned it off. (This is one tool I sort of wish I'd left dirty. It looked 200 years old when I found it).





The chuck says 0-5/16", but it will take a 21/64" drill bit, so they just 'simplified' the fraction when they stamped it. The branding and patent information placement is different than the drawing in post #17 and it has multiple patent dates, but aside from that, it looks the same.

A K30 chuck key seems to fit pretty well.

Tom

A snap from page 11 of my small pocket Catalog confirms the chuck for your drill.

 

[AntiqueBen]

That's a cool catalog humber2. What's the name of it?

 

[isb cornbinder]

The Diesel engine compression brake was invented by Clessy Lyle Cummins. When the company Lyle Cummins founded did not want his braking system, Jacobs stepped up and bought it. Today, that compression braking system is often referred to as The Jac Brake. Today, Cummins owns this system.

 

[AntiqueBen]

Mintgrun's pat applied for chuck looks similar to the chuck in these pics. I've noticed that some chucks that have markings on the smooth center piece of the chuck came along in the '20's. I could be wrong but I've seen several with patent dates with the Jacobs name there. It could be a patent pending on one of Jacob's later patents. Although, it is a 2 jaw. I couldn't tell from his pics if that's a portable electric drill. If it is, B & D was the first and that wasn't until 1917.

 

[Mintgrun]

The two-jaw chuck is a tap holding chuck on a tapping head that fits into a drill press. It spins clockwise (with a built in clutch) when pressure is put down and turns the opposite direction to remove the tap when the drill press handle is raised. (as seen in the first photo of that post)

I have a large hand drill up in the shop that has a 3/4" capacity Jacobs chuck. It's missing the name plate though, so I don't know who made it. I will post photos, if you'd like to see it.

Tom

 

[AntiqueBen]

I always like seeing pics of old hand drills. Maybe we can help you identify the maker

 

[AntiqueBen]

The two-jaw chuck is a tap holding chuck on a tapping head that fits into a drill press. It spins clockwise (with a built in clutch) when pressure is put down and turns the opposite direction to remove the tap when the drill press handle is raised. (as seen in the first photo of that post)

I have a large hand drill up in the shop that has a 3/4" capacity Jacobs chuck. It's missing the name plate though, so I don't know who made it. I will post photos, if you'd like to see it.

Tom

Tom, I started another thread for antique electric hand drills if you'd like to post pics of your hand drills there too. Link is HERE

 

[Mintgrun]

Cool. I like old drills too. I'll go ahead and post a couple photos here, just to follow through. The phone that I am using is new to me and I've got a lot to learn about using the camera, so my abilities are limited at the moment.

 

[Mintgrun]

Very limited. Here's a group shot of my big drills and the one on the left side has the #36 3/4" capacity chuck.



I once spent nine hours using that drill to remove an 8x8 pressure treated post from concrete, with a three foot long extension on a 2-1/2" Forstner bit and it never complained. (Although, I did).



I'm guessing the one with a 3/4" chuck was made by Van Dorn, based on the shape of the D handle; but it's only a guess. It'd probably be better to discuss it in your new drill thread.

Tom

 

[AntiqueBen]

Awesome collection Tom. Sounds like your 3/4" is your "old reliable." I love seeing these old drills still in service. I agree that it may be a Van Dorn. You can't replicate what it's like to use an old drill like these. I always look for a reason to use mine.

 

[AntiqueBen]

^ That is a question for datamp.org or someone who knows more about patent law.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what happened there... but all I've read thus far was the first ruling that I posted just above.
Yes, some of those drag on for years. See Coes.
And some companies have shown propensities for being "sue happy" (see Aronson.)

I'll have to look at the documents you've unearthed there.

One of the many fascinating aspects of vintage tool collecting is delving into these legal entanglements on patents - when you start chasing down the citations in the suits they lead off to other inventors and devices which may or may not have actually been put into production, or were in fact precursors to something which became a popular "thing" later on.

This is the kind of stuff the guys at datamp.org get excited about - it's definitely a break from the humdrum.

Do you have an email for datamp? When I click on their contact page to send them an email, it won't come up. I appreciate any help.
Ben

 

[four.cycle]

^ When you're looking at the page on datamp.org, look just below the illustration (if one is posted) over on the right. Below that there's a hyperlink that says "Report errors or omissions" - that's the link to the email addy.

 

[AntiqueBen]

Gotcha. Thanks.

 

[AntiqueBen]

I found another nice Jacobs chuck today. I still need to clean it up. This one doesn't have a model number on it. It just has the Jacobs name marked Hartford & the 1902 patent date. It appears to be 5/8, pretty good size. There are definite design differences compared to my other Jacobs 3A that's the same size.

 

[RoninB4]

As a retired toolmaker I'd like to say that I (and many others) regarded Jacobs as the standard by which all other drill chucks were measured by. Lots of folks liked the Albrecht and I do/did too for some applications. But when I expected trouble drilling and needed some real "bite" from the drill chuck it was a keyed Jacobs that I selected first. The newish ones made offshore aren't made like the old ones and aren't very well regarded in the shops or in the discussion websites. At the risk of sounding like an Olde Phart....I miss the old stuff in lots of things.

 

[AntiqueBen]

As a retired toolmaker I'd like to say that I (and many others) regarded Jacobs as the standard by which all other drill chucks were measured by. Lots of folks liked the Albrecht and I do/did too for some applications. But when I expected trouble drilling and needed some real "bite" from the drill chuck it was a keyed Jacobs that I selected first. The newish ones made offshore aren't made like the old ones and aren't very well regarded in the shops or in the discussion websites. At the risk of sounding like an Olde Phart....I miss the old stuff in lots of things.

I'm with you RoninB4 . When it comes to tools, I absolutely prefer buying the old stuff & cleaning it up vs. buying a new shiny tool made in china from the big box stores. You can't beat good 'ol American Steel. Things were made to last then. I like the old saying "The most expensive tool you'll ever buy....is a cheap one."

 

[Steve from Socal]

Here is a No. O and 1 chuck with a No 20. I have many Jacobs chucks and as mentioned they are the go to for important jobs.