Edwin R. Fellows
| Edwin R. Fellows | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | May 29, 1865 Torrington, Connecticut |
| Died | May 21, 1945 Springfield, Vermont |
| Nationality | U.S.A. |
| Education | High school |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Engineering career | |
| Employer(s) | Jones & Lamson Machine Company, Fellows Gear Shaper Company |
| Significant design | Gear-cutting machine tool |
| Significant advance | Gear shaper and cutter |
| Awards | John Scott Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1899 |
Edwin R. Fellows (May 29, 1865 – May 21, 1945) was an American inventor and entrepreneur from Torrington, Connecticut who designed and built a new type of gear shaper in 1896 and, with the mentoring of James Hartness, left the Jones & Lamson Machine Company to co-found the Fellows Gear Shaper Company in Springfield, Vermont, which became one of the leading firms in the gear-cutting segment of the machine tool industry. Fellows' machines made a vital contribution to the mass production of effective and reliable gear transmissions for the nascent automotive industry. By the conclusion of World War II, Fellows Gear Shaper Company machines were in defense contractor plants, manufacturing geared components for aircraft engines, tanks, instruments, cameras, fuses and other war-time materiel.
Fellows' father, Charles L. Fellows, was a principal of Torrington High School and was interested in mathematics. When his father died, Fellows was in his first year of high school. As a result of his father's death, Fellows had to go to work as a department store clerk while his mother had to take on lodgers. One such lodger was James Hartness, who was to become a machine-tool entrepreneur in Springfield, Vermont and who befriended Fellows and ultimately convinced him to follow career opportunities in the Springfield machine-tool industry with his firm, the Jones & Lamson Machine Company (J&L). Roe reports that Fellows completed high school.
Fellows moved to Springfield in 1889, working first at a screw-making machine before being transferred to the drafting department at J&L. In this capacity he became interested in the problem of manufacturing gears, which requires accurate shaping according to mathematical principles in many different forms, including spur gears, worm gears, helical gears and spiral bevel gears. The problem employs the "study of involute cycloidal, epicycloidal and hypocycloidal curves."
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