private industry manufacturing founded january 14 1910 1910 01 14 founder frank barks edward barstow headquarters lincoln industrial corp. one lincoln way street st. louis missouri area served worldwide products automatic lubrication systems manual lubrication and industrial pumping systems number of employees 2100 2011 website www.lincolnindustrial.com lincoln industrial corporation lincoln is a manufacturer of automated lubrication systems manual lubrication equipment and industrial pumping systems . founded in 1910 the company has been responsible for many of the inventions that established modern lubrication practices in automotive maintenance and industry . contents 1 early history 1.1 the age of the automobile 1.2 the war years 2 production 2.1 automatic lubrication 2.2 the lincoln 815 air coupler 2.3 lincoln s series 20 and powermaster pumps 2.4 standardizing on the 55 u.s. gallon drum 2.5 the fisher lincoln automatic turntable 2.6 multi luber 2.7 the lever grease gun 3 a focus on lubrication equipment 4 skf and lincoln industrial 5 notes 5.1 lincoln flex o matic 6 bibliography early history edit after five years with the union pacific railroad in nebraska frank barks went to work for the commonwealth steel company in granite city illinois where his cousin clarence l. howard was president . two years later in january 1910 they recruited several investors and formed the steel roof truss company in valley park missouri . the company made tubular steel roof trusses but showed a first year loss of 3 000 . most of the investors sold their interests to barks howard and edward h. barstow . the company s first facilities in 1910 . in october 1912 the company changed its name to barks and barstow manufacturing company . expanding their operation they began making prefabricated steel buildings barns and cotton gin structures . they hired a 20 year old alex p. fox to serve as a draftsman . in august 1915 the valley park location suffered damage from a flood on the meramac river and two tributaries fishpot creek and grand glaize creek . case study they began looking for another location for their plant and eventually purchased 4 acres 16 000 m2 of land at goodfellow and natural bridge in north st. louis for 2 500 per acre . fox was promoted to assistant treasurer and later to vice president when in 1916 clarence howard resigned and frank barks succeeded him as president . the company relocated to 5701 natural bridge and changed its name to lincoln steel and forge company . it was said that barks named the company after the civil war president . an early lubrication device called a lubrigun is use on coal cars wheels . lincoln began to manufacture what became their first principal product coal mine car frames including the axles using anti friction bearings supplied by the hyatt roller bearing company . the company quickly became a standard in the industry . it was the roller bearing designed by hyatt coupled with lincoln s design for the car itself that made the product successful . continued emphasis on improving productivity in the mines led to the development of the first automatic power driven grease gun to be marketed commercially . used for lubricating the mine cars the unit included a 400 lb pressurized tank one or more hoses and valves that automatically dispensed a predetermined amount of grease . the first lincoln lubrigun introduced in 1923 was mounted on a mine car truck . the age of the automobile edit by 1917 there were already 5 million cars on american roads . inventions as automobile ownership became more prevalent demand for service stations to do routine maintenance on vehicles was soaring . lincoln adapted their mine car lubricator to be used by service station mechanics . the p 25 airline lubrigun was introduced in 1925 . eight different versions of the lubrigun were developed for the automobile market . more than 65 000 were sold between 1926 and 1931 . fox an early lubrication island at a service station in the 1930s . in 1931 despite the great depression lincoln organized their own national sales force . lubrication had become their primary focus marketing a wide range of products to car dealers and service stations through a network of distributors called jobbers . from 1931 to 1933 barks patented many lubrication devices including fittings and couplers . in 1934 stewart warner corp. sued lincoln then named lincoln engineering co. for patent infringement arguing that lincoln s new fittings violated their patents . the case was heard before courts in st. louis fargo chicago and pittsburgh before eventually being settled by the united states supreme court in 1938 . 1 the court ruled in favor of lincoln . in his writing of the opinion of the court justice owen j. roberts said we conclude that butler s stewart warner effort by the use of a combination claim to extend the monopoly of his invention of an improved form of chuck or coupler to old parts or elements having no new function when operated in connection with the coupler renders the claim hooker . decree reversed . the court s decision in 1938 paved the way for lincoln to market a line of fittings grease guns and accessories under a product line the company named kleenseal . various hand held grease guns couplers and other accessories were developed to address a wide range of applications . despite the pressures of a long term suit the company developed the first drum pump for transferring lubricants from the original refinery containers . lincoln developed the first portable oil drain and a quick detachable air coupler . these innovations led to complete lubrication pumps and swivel assemblies that dispensed lubricant directly from the original refinery container to an automobile on an overhead lift . service stations car dealers and mechanics began to heavily promote their lubrication services and lincoln developed white drum sleeves to cover the refinery containers . fox in 1936 lincoln introduced lincoln s island battery with three white sleeved pump drums white pump motors and a white platform . eventually the company developed complete lubrication cabinets and merchandisers to assist car dealerships and service stations in marketing their lubrication services . floor mounted reels were adapted to facilitate the dispensing of crankcase oil and were eventually incorporated into lubrication cabinets . in march 1941 alex p. fox succeeded frank barks as president of lincoln engineering . barks died aboard a cruise ship returning from south america . fox would remain president until 1957 . the war years edit lincoln s expertise in lubrication was called into service when world war ii broke out . the company began producing grease guns and fittings for the quartermaster corps and tooling for the production of small caliber ammunition . military personnel raise the e award flag at the lincoln headquarters . in addition the company manufactured 20 mm high explosive projectiles used in fighter planes lincoln production war bulletin and boosters for 155 and 105 artillery pieces . the boosters were the ignition source used to fire the big guns . redenbaugh the military also wanted a surface check grease fitting that would help to prevent dirt from entering through a fitting . lincoln had developed many advances in fittings including the bullneck fitting and a surface check feature the design that remains the most widely used in industry today . the company s relationship with the armed forces was helped by an ex employee who became a procurement officer serving in the pentagon . redenbaugh lincoln received the army navy e award five times during the war . they built special gasoline powered grease guns that could be used in the field and a steel suitcase including manual lever guns and the gasoline drive grease guns used on tanks and other motorized vehicles on the front . the government issued a blanket deferment for all workers around 1 000 people because of lincoln s war plant status . more women worked in the plant during the war than had ever been employed previously . schneller the company operated a separate facility about a mile east of the main plant . the geraldine facility manufactured the boosters as part of the u.s. army st. louis ordnance plant . redenbaugh production edit automatic lubrication edit in 1937 lincoln introduced the first single line positive displacement lubrication system for industry . the system was significantly less expensive than conventional two line systems . designed by lincoln s chief of engineering lutwin rotter the centro matic system used a pump to distribute lubricant to a number of injectors . these injectors measure the amount of lubricant dispensed with each cycle of the pump . initially the pumps were hand operated . later air operated pumps and mechanical timers called chicken house timers conley were added to automate the entire system . by dispensing very small amounts of lubricant every few hours the correct amount of lubricant remained in the bearing . this made industrial bearings last longer . automated lubrication reduced maintenance costs for many types of manufacturing operations and became very important in the mining sector . the first application at a coal mine in indiana was on a marian shovel . eventually mcturers of large mining equipment made these systems standard equipment on every large haul truck shovel drag line and mill they sold . godier centro matic became lincoln s primary product for the industrial market . in time more features allowed centro matic systems to service hundreds of lubrication points with pumps dispensing lubricant directly from refinery containers . the lincoln 815 air coupler edit also called flex o matic long nose lincoln series and type l or style l air line fittings the 815 air coupler replaced the existing difficult to operate push twist lock style coupler . the design simply pushed on and pulled off using an easy sleeve device that was pulled back when attaching or detaching an air hose . the lincoln 815 air coupler introduced april 7 1942 is the standard inch 10 mm air hose coupler used today in almost every industry . before the inventor retired lincoln had sold more than 50 000 000 units . rudy schneller said of his invention they haven t made a single change since the original . can you imagine we d all be riding model ts . lincoln flex o matic automatic air coupling was once used as an improved solution to a girl s prosthetic leg so she could easily change from shoes to sneakers . lincoln s series 20 and powermaster pumps edit lincoln pioneered many innovations in lubrication pump design . in 1940 a 2 air motor was invented that utilized a full stroke valve mechanism victor klein principal inventor that permitted a pump without springs by operating using only compressed air . in 1946 rotter improved the reciprocating engine of the 2 air motor by reducing the number of parts and increasing the efficiency of the motor . the current series 20 lubricant pumps still popular with automotive markets and industrial customers has changed little since these innovations . schneller later worked on a design that divorced the air motor from the pump tube . the powermaster concept had several advantages . by selecting from various air motor and pump combinations you could control the pump ratio air input to pump output more precisely with more options . when lubricant pumps were first invented they were used to pump oil and lightweight greases . overtime lubricant viscosity increased and lubricant pumps were stressed to the limits . the higher viscosity lubricants were required because cars were built to perform at higher rpm conley . one outcome of attempting to pump heavier materials was that seals would fail and the lubricant would leak into the air motor . by divorcing the pump tube from the air motor a seal failure would simply cause grease to be leaked onto the ground