Vintage Canton Foundry Portable Crane & Hoist

[930dreamer]

I see an ad on MP specifically looking for Cantons.

 

[90roadster]

the booklet isn't mine to share, a acquaintance from fb shared the no.8 pics. note the 8 has been repaired too. i would like to know what the data tag reads.

Mike it hasnt been repaired, the upright on this particular crane is made from mild steel. I believe the weld is due to limit of plate size available in 1900s, the weld is on same location vertically on both uprights, also the weld on the 90 degree back rib is staggered again at same location on both ribs. I believe it came this way.

 

[Nick Rivers]

Canton, Ohio

Canton Foundry and Machine Company 1906
Home of the Timken Company - Timken Tapered Roller Bearings, Timken Steel Plants 1901
Former home of the Dueber-Hampton Watch Company 1888
Home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and birthplace of the NFL in 1920
First commercially produced Vacuum Cleaner invented in Canton in 1907

 

[BlackVersa2]

I see an ad on MP specifically looking for Cantons.

That's a guy in Ohio. He spams the ads nationwide.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I hope @90roadster doesn't mind me posting this here, which is more convenient for me, and more fun for everyone.

He contacted me recently and asked me if I had any information about his Canton No. 8 and its "Defense Plant Corporation / Ford" data tag.

I told him the crane was from WWII, for starters, and I outlined some basic high-level facts for him about the DPC (quasi-governmental/quasi-commercial contracting agency that spent $5B building the War Machine) and, in particular, the DPC and Ford Motor Company and the many FoMoCo war production plants that the DPC helped equip and expand.

When he told me where the Canton No. 8 was recovered, in the UP, its proximity to Ford's "Iron Mountain" plant made things much more interesting!



Here is a scan from War Production Board accounting records of all the FoMoCo plants and the DPC funding that went into them, in alphabetical order, from their plant in Chester, PA to their plant in Ypsilanti, MI. The FoMoCo section starts on page 47 and contines to page 48. I have highlighted the Iron Mountain plant entry in yellow.



The scan is poor so I will help.

Under "WAR PRODUCTS" it identifies the product of the "Iron Mountain, Mich." FoMoCo plant as "Cargo Gliders" and indicates that Ford received a total of $457,000 for "Structures" ($267,000) and "Equipment" ($190,000) from DPC for enhancing, expanding and converting that plant. For context, note that $190,000 in 1944 dollars is equivalent in purchasing power to about $3.4M today. The DPC property tagged everything. Vises with DPC tags are very common, as well as lathes and other shop equipment. Now, I will admit that nothing is definitive with this kind of deductive analysis. It's possible the crane was used in DPC-equipped Ford plants in Chicago or Dearborn or St Paul and transported all the way to the UP. But it's not very plausible. What makes the most sense for a crane of that monstrous size and capacity is that it didn't go too far from home when it was surplused. And I would bet dollars to donuts it came out of Iron Mountain.

If you're not familiar, these weren't just any gliders FoMoCo was making. They were Hadrians! Designed by Waco Aircraft Company, designated the CG-4A by the US Army Air Corps, the Hadrian was not a small glider! It was almost 50' long with an 84' feet wingspan. The fuselage was steel tubing and the cockpit was made of the same flexible mahogany panels that Ford was putting on their woodies! It weighed 2 tons empty and could carry that much in cargo. Its most popular load was a couple squads of Rangers and a jeep towing either a trailer or a 75mm howitzer tow-dropped behind enemy lines. FoMoCo made close to 5,000 of them at Iron Mountain.

Why Iron Mountain? Ford owned 500,000 acres of forest in the UP for floor boards, dashboards, and body frames in the prewar era. Iron Mountain was the processing plant.

For further reading and photos of the plant and the gliders, the Wiki entry for the CG-4A is pretty good.

Waco CG-4 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But this Hagerty spotlight article on the Ford Iron Mountain glider plant museum is even better.

When Ford Stopped Building Woodies to Make WWII Gliders - Hagerty Media

You probably know about Willow Run and its B-24s. But did you know that Ford contributed to America's first stealth aircraft, the CG-4A glider?

www.hagerty.com

 

[90roadster]

@Private Lugnutz Thank you sir for putting in the time to search this! I agree we do not know for certain but my moneys with you, most likely Glider plant crane. Very neat history.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

My pleasure! Your find and its likeliest wartime employment, bringing history to life, exemplify the coolest part of the GJ vintage board.

 

[wrenchguy]

thx lguz, u are expert. dollars 2 donuts.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks, Mike. We're not totally out of the woods, so to speak, quite yet with this one. In doing my research, I couldn't find any record of a Canton Foundry & Machine Company in any of my War Production Board references, and I couldn't find any ads in trade mags for them later than the 1920s. According to a little blurb on vintagemachinery.com, "The company survived until at least 1929." There is zero doubt that the Defense Plant Corporation data plate on that No. 8 portable crane is wartime. The DPC was established on August 22, 1940. The question is, how old is that crane? And does it imply that the DPC purchased it used? Or is the publically available info on Canton just missing? Does anyone have anything showing them in business in the 40s?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I think I may have started to answer some of my own questions.

I was finding a lot of "Canton" cranes that were attributed to a company called Hill Acme, not Canton Foundry & Machine Co. That led me to this blurb, taken from this Case Western Reserve Encyclopedia of Cleveland History article...

"The HILL ACME CO. was one of Cleveland's oldest firms engaged in the heavy manufacturing business. Jacob Perkins and Harry Hill founded and incorporated the firm in 1886 as the Hill Clutch Co...[ ]... In 1931 it purchased the Cleveland Knife & Forge Co. (founded 1891) on W. 113th St. Four years later, it acquired the Canton Foundry & Machine Co., a manufacturer of shears and cranes. In 1940 Hill merged with another pioneer firm in heavy manufacturing, the Acme Machinery Co., which had been started in 1884 at the corner of Hamilton and Beiden (E. 45th) streets. The merged firm was incorporated as the Hill Acme Co. and made an expanded line of products, including special machinery and shears for the automotive, aviation, and steel industries."

More to follow.

 

[90roadster]

My guess is they purchased it used, possibly due to supply. By 1940s Hill Acme was making tubular fabricated cranes as such:



Note here they actually called them "Canton"

 

[Private Lugnutz]

My guess is they purchased it used, possibly due to supply.

It's possible. Odd, but not entirely unprecedented.

I respectfully propose that your crane not being branded like the pre-Hill Acme cranes is an overtly unusual feature that merits exploring further. It suggests at least one other possibility, for me, and that is that Hill Acme initially used the original Canton plant and dies and tooling to continue making the same crane, but simply took the forged-in Canton branding off of the upright and arm. Almost like a transition period.

Note here they actually called them "Canton"

Roger. That's what I was alluding to with the quotes here...

I was finding a lot of "Canton" cranes that were attributed to a company called Hill Acme,

Converting a company name into a brand name is the classic approach with acquisitions, in any era, but especially mid century conglomeration.

By 1940s Hill Acme was making tubular fabricated cranes as such:

Note that this model and line, which they advertised the hell out of as "stronger" than the old line, described as "welded, laced, high-tensile steel" and weighing only 2,225 lbs vs 6,000 lbs, was announced and introduced in 1945.

In my opinion, that lends credence to the idea that from 1940 to 1945, which roughly coincides with WWII and the DPC tag, they were still making the former model portable crane and hoist with existing and or only slightly modified manufacturing processes, moulds, castings, dies, and tooling. That would not have been a time for the head shed (front office, design shop) to introduce a whole new model and line. Immediately following WWII makes sense, though.

I will emphasize that I am casting zero doubt on your crane being a "Canton," and I have no stake in determining if it was manufactured pre- or post-HA. The DPC tag, the lack of the classic forged-in branding, and the history of the acquisition and the introduction of the new model and line in 1945 just make it all unignorably more intriguing.

 

[90roadster]

Would be great to find some photo archives from Iron Mountain Ford plant to try to spot this beast. I looked but no luck so far.

 

[AlignmachineCo]

I have a #5 and #1, I'll post pictures of my #1 tomorrow, it's basically original and complet.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Sweet!

 

[AlignmachineCo]

NVM I found my #1 holding my Reed 208

 

[four.cycle]

Canton / Canton Foundry & Machine Co., Canton, OH / est. 1907 acquired by Hill Clutch Machine & Foundry Co. 1935 / portable crane & hoist / patent 998211 Jul 18 1911 Albertus O. Slentz & 1721363 Jul 16 1929 Edward J. Wesp / http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=10898 / https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/vintage-canton-foundry-portable-crane-hoist.481268/ /

 

[RTM]

NVM I found my #1 holding my Reed 208

Geez, nothing like showing off two rare (and desirable) beauts in one pic.

 

[AlignmachineCo]

Geez, nothing like showing off two rare (and desirable) beauts in one pic.

I'll post pictures of other stuff too lol I can only flex with tools and fixing machines