The Universal Jig & Gauge Company, Birmingham

I am fortunate enough to possess a small vintage bench mounted Hauser milling machine fitted with levers and stops as originally used I believe for high precision production runs in WW2. The interesting thing however is that where you would expect to see the Hauser name, the fitted plate is stamped "Universal Jig & Gauge Company", Birmingham. Can anyone throw any light on why this might have been so and what eventually happened to the Universal Jig & Tool Co.

Universal Jig & Gauge Co. were still functioning in the CBI in 1972, and I've a faint and uncertain memory of ordering small consumable tooling from them in 1977 or 8 for Teleflex-Morse (also since defunct).

Edited By Mick B1 on 02/10/2020 17:46:25

Teleflex, now there's a name from the past along with Morse, Gills, ACCO, Clarkes and Bowden

Colin

Teleflex-Morse, of Basildon. I never knew of Morse as a separate concern. I got a job there as an Industrial Engineer, originally to work away the massive backlog of Engineering Change Notes they had. That meant understanding their developing computer system in order to trace out the implications to higher-level assemblies and ensure jigs and fixtures got any required modifications, along with time study and troubleshooting tooling on running jobs.

I loved it. It led me into a 35 year career in MRP/MRP II/ERP systems. That had its bright spots, but I didn't love all of it.

Edited By Mick B1 on 02/10/2020 19:59:52

I can imagine that just before the outbreak of WW2, a name like Hause would not be a good marketing ploy. My paternal grandfather dropped his second Christian name of Adolphus and used "Bert" in preference!

Hauser is in fact of Swiss origin and now part of a larger comglomerate. I suspect that the Universal Jig and Tool Co were in fact the UK agents for the Swiss company at some time although there may have been others importing the same equipment.

Swiss or Austrian? I thought the latter.

.

Try a google search for:

"henri hauser" bienne switzerland

You should find lots of pictures of nameplates and advertisements.

MichaelG.

This soujnds like one of the many patent defeating measures for WWII

At the start of the coinflict UK Gov. instigated a parliamentary investigatory commitee to examine the need to copy German precision machines needed for wartime production. Some of the machine tools well known to the older people here came out of this such as the BCA (and similar) jig borers, the Pultra lathes and the Smart & Brown 'L' model lathe.

As well as 'enemy' machines some other equipement that could not be easily sourced across international bounderies was also copied and the patent considerations negotiated after the conflict. These included Swiss automatic pinion mills which were copied exactly with interchangeable parts etc.

Have attached a photo showing the makers name plate as attached to the Hauser milling machine

FAO the Moderator - could you please change the title word "Tool" in this thread to read "Gauge". Thankyou

.

That looks fairly typical of a plate affixed by a ‘UK Agent’

[ Import/Distribution/Service rather than ‘Secret’ ]

MichaelG.

Hi, I agree with MichaelG. I've seen such plates (not that particular one) on lab machines, whereby they can't or don't trade directly to UK markets and have to go through a UK based distributer and getting spares was a bit of a long winded process, luckily many spare parts could be made in house though.

Regards Nick.

I lived in Birmingham for my first 25 years. The name UJ&G Co. rings the faintest of bells. I would have said that it was a company of some size that manufactured tooling for local industry, of which there was a great deal. I do not recall it as a sales agent for other manufacturers. Could be quite wrong though.

Could the nameplate on the mill be a mark of one-time ownership?

The firm I work for had/have (unsure if we've still retained that exact one! Ill have a look on Monday), it a Jones and Shipman 540 surface grinder with the old company name on a little tag on the back of the machine with the old company name of Diagrit grinding company.

Unsure of the exact reason why a tag was placed on it, the fact that we still have it, were never machinery dealers, and Jones and Shipman being a British based company would indicate other uses to what has been said above. (I could be wrong!)

The picture above has a number 19 on the tag. The tag on our 540, I am unsure whether it has any numbers on it but could these tags been works machine numbers. I know all current grinding machines have a little plastic disc with a number which is to do with coolant records, but these do not have the company name.

Hope that is of any useful information

William

.

Strangely enough ... I had assumed it was “Birmingham 19.”

i.e. the district address

MichaelG.

Oh yes I stand corrected, hadn't thought of that! looking up on graces guide there are some adverts with Birmingham 19 as the address.

William

Not correcting you, William ... it was just my assumption

I’ve been wrong before, and I’m sure I will be again.

MichaelG.