Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Torpedoes, guns, tires and... fiber cleaning machines?

One of Arthur's earliest patents - which GeneB found and is number 361,838. Mentioned in the May 21, 1887 issue of Scientific American, application filed July 15, 1886. Busy guy.

Now.. what's the real use of a fiber cleaning machine? No idea.

One point I find interesting is that 1886 is when he reportedly moved to America. To move a family and develop and file a patent within half a year? Wow.

The guy was a genius.

He certainly wasn't an idle mind.

Textiles?

Here's a clue:

macerating: soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid.

Sounds like some sort of washing device.

I dunno. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin about 100 years earlier.

I was thinking more like hemp or flax fibers.

Hemp it is.
Scroll to paragraph 5...
hemp

Lucky guess!

Nah.

You just good...

DF

That's logical.. but I'm going to venture a different theory.

I'm going with cotton. To be used in the manufacture and cleaning of cotton for guncotton. 1886 was right on the cusp of the first smokeless powder, but guncotton had been in use for a couple of decades and they were trying to work out bugs like factories blowing up and the powder degrading over time due to acid in the cotton.

But I'm just guessing this because it fits in with Arthur's interest in new guns at the time. His first gun patent was filed less than a year after this was.

Well... if it was hemp, his designs for 'tires' makes me wonder what he was doing with the leaves.... His only tire patents are for tires made of pieces of steel linked together over a heavy rubber inner tube. I have a copy of an old newspaper article I'll have to track down about A W Savage going to Europe to try and sell these metal tires during WWI and him getting shot somehow.

I see the write up in Forgotten Weapons say he patented the radial tire, he did not, WIKIPEDIA also say this and gives a patent number, there are two issue with the patent they refer to, it is not Arthur W's but one of his son's, Arthur J, and it not a radial tire, it is belted, but it is a belted bias ply, that may be were the error comes from since all radial tires are belted.

First three are A. W.'s, last two A. J.'s. , you can see from the side walls details they are not radials.

The tires were 30 years later than the fiber cleaning machine, and he was getting the rubber for them from the Amazon according to newspaper reports. The cotton fabric for the tires in 1914 was purchased from Brighton Mills of Passaic, NJ.

I was wondering where forgotten weapons got their hemp link, because I couldn't find anything. Not saying it's wrong, it's quite possible.

But the first smokeless powder was introduced in 1885. Guncotton had been introduced in 1846, and by the 1860's it had progressed to be used in some artillery - including torpedoes. But while very powerful, it was unstable. The development of smokeless powder actually expanded on guncotton - both of them being based on nitrocellulose. Would Arthur have been dabbling in commercial machinery right before diving into firearms? Or had he seen that black powder was becoming obsolete and was dabbling with getting involved in it's replacement?

Large pic here of a newspaper article from Jan 1, 1914 on Arthur W. Savage and the tire company, AJ was the superintendent. Had to keep it large to be easily read. Around 1920 Spreckels industries bought into Savage Tires, and with the advancement of technology in the 20's the company didn't keep up and faded away.
Spreckel was already involved at this point in 1914, my bad. I believe they took over almost totally later on from accounts that I've read.

I wish there was more info available for this period of AWS life.
I read somewhere that he tried or did sell some "steel/puncture proof" tires to the military during WWI. Another attempt at a Gov'nt contract I guess.
Also read somewhere AWS took a job with the Gov'nt during this time, but have no idea what, where or when.
Anybody??

Ok so AWS sold some tires to the Allies it appears. Good for him.
Also appears he sustained some sort of injury. Hmmm,....shot? Sounds good, but wonder what the story was. Shot by enemy fire or shot as an accident while demonstrating the "bullet proof" tire. Or falling down the stairs celebrating the tire sale.
At any rate I don't see anything that connects AWS to a "Gov'nt" position of any kind. Could be legend I suppose.

"he found it necessary to enlist, and did so."

That'd be a gov't position of some type.