Last week a fine gentleman and friend of
mine had decided to part with two pieces of machinery from his workshop.
Both pieces were imported from Europe, one from Switzerland and the
other from Germany. They were in immaculate condition and
coincidentally, with how the world works, were exactly what we needed in
our factory! This story is the story of one of those machines - the
Deckel S0, tool grinder.
Friedrich Deckel was a machine tool manufacturer that made precision
toolroom machinery out of Germany during the mid 1900s. The story of
their company is fascinating, with links to Zeiss, Ernst Abbe and many
other industrial powerhouses in central Europe. Interestingly, FD
manufactured shutter components for nearly every single camera
manufacturer! If you have a minute, even a quick glance over their
history on Wikipedia can give you a great understanding of the influence
they had on the industrialisation of Europe.
During the late 50s, Deckel narrowed it's business scope to making
machine tools, some of which today have the same cult following among
machine tool collectors as vintage Patek does to Patek collectors.
Deckel made some of the most well built milling and grinding equipment
money could by. We talk a lot about our "Kern" machine, Deckel was the
Kern of it's time! In 1993 Deckel merged with another machine tool
builder, "Maho AG" and became Deckel Maho AG. Within a year they filed
for bankruptcy and were purchased by Gildemeister, another German
machine tool manufacturer, and renamed to "DMG". About 20 years and a
lot of growth later, a Japanese company by the name of Mori Seiki merges
with DMG, to make DMG MORI, which is as of writing this, the largest
machine tool manufacturer in the world, supplying machines to every
single market segment and servicing every single manufacturing need that
humanity has to offer.
Friedrich Deckel, the "D" in DMG Mori AG, is in many ways the progenitor
of arguably the most successful, and definitely the largest machine
tool builder in the world. From humble beginnings making grinding
equipment for Zeiss and almost failing twice, now the crowning letter in
a company that employs over six thousand people and has a sales volume
measured in billions. This story is fascinating to me, it's all about
longevity - make something, make it well, and service it to last.
Success is almost guaranteed. Who knows where you will end up if you can
keep on 'Stayin Alive'.
Pictured: The Deckel S0 Single lip tool and cutter grinder. Used in our
workshop to produce cutters out of carbide and high speed steel, and
most notably will be used to make and sharpen cutters for the guilloche
process in our NH series watches.
While you are here: a photo of the current project: an assembly for a
space application. This is a ground up project where our role involves
providing a technical solution, design, manufacturing and assembly. The
chassis was made from a solid block of metal, and so were the bronze
rack gears.
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