Web links, resources, and references

Other Internet resources


Specific Pantograph & engraving equipment related items


Engraving the Lord's prayer on the point of a pin

Much of this content is drawn from George Gorton II's unpublished memoirs

In 1934, the company began planning for an exhibit for the 1935 National Machine Tool Builders Association show in Cleveland. The show was held every four years, and seems to have been a major industry event. This would be the first time the company would exhibit at the show, and the decision was made by George II "to make a lasting impression on as many visitors as possible". The initial concept was to demonstrate the precision of the pantograph line. A fellow named Fred Knapp ("an extra-ordinary person;...skillful, painstaking and patient worker") was given the task of "engraving on one or our pantographs the complete Lord's Prayer in as small an area as possible." The initial effort was in a 1/32nd inch circle, but the final result was within a circle of .005" in diameter. The final engraving took about six weeks to complete. An article in the November 30, 1975 Racine Journal Times also indicates that in addition to the final "show" versions, two other copies of the effort exist, and are in the Knapp family. One is .0085" diameter, the other is .005" diameter. This article also comments upon the difficulty in actually making these - the vibrations from a passing truck were large enough to ruin an in-progress copy. Even more amazingly, the heat from an incandescent lightbulb nearby was sufficient to cause enough thermal expansion to shift the cutter head completely away from the engraving surface. It must have been an extremely challenging effort to actually complete the engraving.
To put this into perspective of current-day technologies, the letters are 1/40,000 of an inch deep, and 1/10,000 of an inch high. Which means that the height of the letters is equal to 6.45161E-08 meters. That is, 64nm (Nanometers) high, and 258nm deep.
As of June, 2004, the show exhibit of this engraving is in a cabinet in the posession of Famco Machine (see above).
Current microprocessors are designed with 90nm optical lithography.
The inscribed Lord's Prayer was performed 70 years ago with purely mechanical technologies, and is roughly comparable (within 2-3 years) to current mainstream semiconductor lithography - an impressive achievement, indeed.
There are a couple of articles currently on the web about the effort.
Alphabetically, they are:
An article about Fred's work (and the fact that his family owns two other copies of) in producing the Lord's prayer appeared in the Racine Journal Times in Nov. 1975


Thanks to:

The content on this web site would never have been possible without the assistance of various family members, and a few other key organizations/contributors. These key contributors include:

References:

A wide variety of publications and documents were used a references.
All of the manuals and product catalogs displayed are scanned versions of content owned by this author.
All scanned photos are property of the author or family members; in the case of images of modern day usage of equipment, explicit permission has been granted to publish those images.
[Dretske] William Buffhams's Telescope and Microscope. Diana Dretske, Vol. 12, Issue 47 (July 1998) of the Rittenhouse Journal
[Bgene] Genealogical data provided by Frances Buffham
[GG2mem], [GG2memUWP] As I remember it. Unpublished memoirs of George Gorton II, written 1946-1949. Copies owned by family members; a working copy (with penned in edits) exists in the archives of UW Parkside.
[Oil] A "Big-Ass" Boy in the Oil Fields. George Gorton III, pub. 1976
[Spurs] Bit and Spur Makers in the Vaquero Tradition. Ned and Jody Martin, 1997
[Hist79] History of Racine and Kenosha Counties, 1879
[Port92] Portrait and Biographical Album of Racine, 1892 (photocopies of a few pages of this - I have been unable to obtain a copy)
[Bio06] Biographical record of Racine and Kenosha counties, 1906
[Hist16] Racine Belle City of the Lakes and Racine County, Wisconsin. Two volumes. Fanny S. Stone, editor. S.J.Clarke publishing co, Chicago, 1916.
(Spine of the set says) "History of Racine County"
[Holmes] Wisconsin: Stability Progress Beauty. Frederick Holmes, 1946 (Vol 4 of 5)
[LakeMuse] Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, IL.
[News] Various early newspapers of Racine. Copies are on microfilm at the Racine Public Library, as well as in UW-Parkside's library. Only a very few of these references have been verified (see RHM entry below). These papers include: Racine Morning Advocate, Racine Daily Journal,
[RCity] Racine City Directory (sometimes Racine Business Directory. UWParkside and Racine Heritage Museum have sets of these. They contain information about individuals, their place of work, their place of residence, and sometimes, phone numbers.
[RHM] Racine Heritage Museum, Racine, WI. (archives). These archives include a set of 3x5 cards with brief summaries of a person, along with the source of the information. Unfortunately, the items which refer to early Racine Newspapers are extremely difficult to verify. After spending two hours trying to verify four of these notecards, I was able to find the exact news item once.
[UWP] Archives at University of Wisconsin Parkside, Kenosha, WI
[RWeb] RootsWeb Search for William Buffham or George Gorton, specify year of birth for George or death location of Racine. A number of the Gorton entries were done as part of the Porch Family Tree, by Lori Welsh (but her hotmail account has long since expired)
Copyright, 2004 - 2007 Richard Gorton - gorton @ theworld . com
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