Carlisle & Finch is a manufacturer of nautical equipment founded in 1893 or 1894 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, where it still has its headquarters. For most of its history, the company has focused on searchlights, especially for marine applications. Variants of the basic searchlight design have also been used for navigation beacons by airports and lighthouses.

The company is often considered the first in the US to produce electric toy trains, introducing innovations such as using the rails to conduct electrical power to the cars. Although other US companies had produced trains, Carlisle & Finch was the first to manufacture and market them in volume, which they did for about the first 20 years of operation. Their sets have become highly prized by model train collectors.

Other early products included electric generators (powered either by water pressure or by gasoline engine). The earliest models were small, intended to power train sets, but they later produced larger units. Gasoline engines for marine use were made under the Clifton Motor Works brand. They also produced electric-powered appliances such as clothes dryers. Since the start of World WarI, Carlisle & Finch has concentrated on high-power lighting.

Corporate history

Carlisle & Finch (C&F) began as a branch office of General Electric (GE) at 182–84 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, where electrical engineers Robert Sterett Finch and Morten Carlisle were employed. Finch graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1890 with a bachelor's degree. Carlisle also received a bachelor's degree, in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the same year.

Work included repairing electrical machinery, such as armatures, transformers, and arc lamps. In 1893 or 1894, C&F purchased the shop from GE for $2,500 (), intending to continue the repair business and branch out into manufacturing. and a June 1897 advertisement listed 830 West Sixth Street as their address.

In 1913, C&F protested a ruling by Dudley Field Malone, the Collector of Customs at the Port of New York, that parabolic mirrors imported by the company were subject to a 60% duty as decorated glass. C&F claimed they should be classified as projection lenses which were assessed at 45%. The US Board of General Appraisers upheld the 60% duty. In the years leading up to World WarI, toy train sales fell and the company branched out into other lines of business including gasoline engines.

Carlisle sold his share of the business to Finch on August 3, 1926. Brent S. Finch, Robert's son, was named president, and the company started concentrating entirely on its searchlight business. After World WarII, Brent R. Finch (son of Brent S.) was hired, at which point three generations of Finches were simultaneously employed by the company. , a fourth generation leads the company, with brothers Kurtis B. Finch and Garth S. Finch serving as president and senior vice president, respectively. The 1950 fire destroyed 229 Clifton Avenue, which until shortly before had been their headquarters. C&F had already sold the building to the Cincinnati Board of Education in 1949 and had just moved to a new location at 4562 Mitchell Avenue the previous week. The old building, however, still contained stores of early trains and catalogs which had not yet been removed and these were destroyed in the fire.

In a 1962 interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer, Brent R. Finch said that the company "just sort of drifted into the lighting business". Before World WarI, they were producing both marine engines and searchlights but government influence during the war pushed them to concentrate on lighting while other companies built engines. According to Brent, "After the war, the competitors were too far ahead of us in engine manufacturing so we stuck with the lights." At the time of the interview, the company was working on lights that could operate at water pressures of for use on nuclear submarines, and mercury-xenon lamps for coastal lighthouses.

In 2001, Garth Finch told the Cincinnati Business Courier that C&F was starting to use the Internet to improve international sales, which were under pressure from competitors in Europe; he was hoping to reach $1.6 million in overseas sales within three years. Garth also said that they received several inquiries a month from larger companies wanting to buy the business, but that they intended to keep the business private and family-owned. The company had 35 employees at the time. A year earlier, Garth had spoken of expanding into new markets: architectural lighting, smaller ruggedized lighting for use on high-speed boats, and searchlights which could project product images for advertising. The toy train industry had begun in Europe, with simple designs from British and German toy manufacturers. These were followed in the late 19th century by American companies such as C&F who began manufacturing more substantial models.

Other American companies had made toy trains before C&F. Ives Manufacturing Company, founded by Edward Ives, opened a factory in Plymouth, Connecticut, in 1868. These other makers used wind-up clockworks, steam, electric batteries, or overhead wires to power the cars. According to model railroad historian George E. Hoffer, C&F's 1896 advancement was to use the two rails as electrical conductors. Hoffer called this a "striking innovation" although this technology had been demonstrated as early as 1851 by Thomas Hall. Toy encyclopedist Sharon M. Scott writes that C&F's 1897 train set, which she describes as "revolutionary in its day", was driven by a dry-cell battery enclosed in the locomotive body. The Train Collectors Association, considers C&F to have invented the electric toy train since they were the first to produce them in volume. In his 2007 essay about the company, Cincinnati historian David Conzett takes the same track, describing C&F's electric trains as "the world's first mass-produced and marketed".

In his 1998 New York Times exploration of the history of toy trains, Les Line speculated that an early C&F train set may have been the inspiration which led Joshua Lionel Cowen to start building toy trains. He eventually founded Lionel Corporation, a leading manufacturer of toy trains for most of the 20th century.

Other toys

Although best known for their toy trains, C&F also produced some electric toys of other types. Two battery-powered models were introduced in 1899; an automobile and a torpedo boat probably based on those used in the Spanish–American War. This entire line of business was discontinued at the onset of World WarI.

The book garnered some literary attention. Brookline, Massachusetts librarian Harriet Stanley included it in her 1908 Something to Read for Boys and Girls under "Occupations for Boys". In 1913, the New York Public Library placed it on A Selected List of Books on Engineering, Industrial Arts and Trades and the San Francisco Public Library included it in their 1910 List of Books on Electricity under "Experiments and Amateur Apparatus".'

1910 catalog

thumb|upright=0.85|Carlisle & Finch catalog, |alt=Cover of a booklet. Text in a decorative font reads "Electric Novelties and Scientific Toys – Original Designs / The Carlisle and Finch Co. Manufacturing Electricians / Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A. / 828 & 830 West Sixth St." There is a drawing of a hand-cranked electrical generator.

C&F's catalog included three train sets ranging from one car and a circle of track for $3.50 to a coal train with four cars and of configurable track for $5.00 . All of these included components to build a three-cell battery with customer-supplied glass jars for the chromite wet cells.

For $7.00 , one set could be ordered with motors wound to run from a 110 volt direct current lighting circuit for continuous use in a show window. Available options included additional non-powered cars, an inclined plane railway, a brass truss bridge, a cross-over track fixture for building a figure-8 layout, a rail switch, and railway station with automatic signals. A hand-cranked or belt-driven dynamo and a water-driven generator were also available.

In 2014, a C&F model 45 train set sold for $46,020 at auction. The exact manufacture date of the set, consisting of a locomotive, tender, and passenger cars, was unknown but stated to be . A boxed set of freight cars sold at the same auction for $23,600 . Reporting on the auction, Antique Trader described C&F as a "revered American manufacturer". As well as the actual trains, C&F catalogs are collectable; a set of over a dozen 1904–1931 catalogs from toy train manufacturers Ives, Boucher, C&F, and Voltamp brought $1,980 at a 2000 auction.

Searchlights

C&F introduced an electric searchlight in 1897. Their "Form 2" model included steering gear for remote adjustment of azimuth and elevation and a ball-bearing mount. A 1914 C&F advertisement claimed that 90% of the vessels on US and Canadian inland waterways had searchlights manufactured by the company.

The 1899 C&F catalog listed a searchlight which ran on acetylene gas, with a range of . The unit cost $25.50 or $29.50 , depending on the type of mount.

When World WarI started, production was shifted entirely to searchlights, to aid the war effort. The US Government was a major purchaser, and large orders also came from Greece, Spain, Norway, and Russia. By 1917, C&F was one of the few companies worldwide producing searchlights, and had supplied a large proportion of the searchlights then in use by the United States and other countries. They produced a line of commercial searchlights, and also specialized in navy and military designs. Units were built with diameters, and ranges. Units drew from 10 to 200 amps of electrical current, depending on size.

The earliest models used a carbon arc for the light source. Compared to incandescent bulbs, a carbon arc is superior for searchlight use since it approximates a point source which can be accurately placed at the focal point of a mirror, resulting in uniform illumination across the light beam. The disadvantage is that the carbon rods are consumed in operation, requiring a mechanism to keep moving the rods so the arc remains at the focus. A pair of carbons had a lifetime of about seven hours.

Signal lights

A 1918 US Navy technical training manual listed two manufacturers who supplied low-power signal searchlights to the Navy: GE and C&F.

The major differences between the GE and C&F signal lights were the mechanisms used to adjust the carbon rods as they were consumed. In both types the adjustment was automatic, but the GE unit used a ratchet whereas C&F employed a pair of motor-driven leadscrews.

Modern era lights

<!-- alt=Three 19-inch searchlights mounted vertically in a reinforced frame.|thumb|upright=0.85|Searchlight array for wingtip vortex study -->

The company introduced xenon arc searchlights in the 1960s. LED models followed in 2019. C&F searchlights are used in the US federal prison system. They also produce searchlights which combine a xenon light with an infrared filter to emit a beam which in invisible to the human eye. These can be used in conjunction with night-vision systems to illuminate targets without disclosing the position of the searching vessel.

A 1974 study of wingtip vortices conducted in a NASA Langley Research Center wind tunnel used an array of three C&F incandescent searchlights to provide the high levels of illumination needed to visualize the vortices. The requirements were for a narrow beam (1-to-2-degree beam spread) and illumination levels on the order of 1,000 foot-candles. Twelve commercially available units from four companies were evaluated before selecting the C&F model. While the xenon and carbon arc light sources produced a theoretically preferable circular beam, an incandescent unit was chosen for its simplified power requirements and lower cost, despite producing a beam of "somewhat rectangular shape".

alt=Photo of 24-inch aeronautical beacon|thumb|upright=0.85|24-inch C&F aero beacon installed atop the Union Central LIfe Insurance building

In 1929, a C&F beacon was installed on top of the Union Central Life Insurance Building in downtown Cincinnati, as a visual navigation aid for Lunken Airport. The five million candlepower beam was visible from away on a clear night. Known as a "course marker beacon", it included a two-position automatic bulb changer which was tied into the building's main telephone switchboard to activate a warning light when the backup bulb was put into service.

C&F produced rotating beacons in the DCB (Directional Code Beacon) series starting around 1950. These project a narrow light beam. The light rotates, causing it to appear to flash from the viewpoint of a distant observer. These were originally used as aerodrome beacons, but in the 1990s, the US Coast Guard adopted them for use in lighthouses, replacing existing Fresnel lenses. Models included DCB-24 with a 24-inch diameter, DCB-224 with two such lights, and DCB-36 with a diameter.

In 1961, the United States Coast Guard installed C&F's first beacon designed for a coastal lighthouse. Described at the time as "the most powerful lighthouse beacon on US coasts", it consisted of a rotating assembly with a pair of 36-inch lights facing in opposite directions. Each light had a 2500-watt mercury-xenon arc lamp and a 36-inch mirror, producing a 100-million candlepower beam. It drew 100 amps of current in steady operation and required 50,000 volts during startup. It was installed in the new Buzzards Bay Entrance Light where it would be used mostly in bad weather, supplementing a smaller beacon which would operate on clear nights. At the time, C&F was reported to have 35 employees.

, the DCB-24 and DCB-224 were the standard optics used in landfall lights (the first lights seen when approaching the coast from the open sea). They have a nominal range of depending on the rotation speed and whether a colored cover was installed. They could operate in winds up to , and included an automatic lamp changer.

C&F manufactured a range light (RL-14). These could be configured to show a white, yellow, red, or green beam. A 1998 US Coast Guard technical manual lists two variations on the RL-14; one manufactured by Tideland Signal Company (model RS-355) and the other from C&F (model RS-10668) with the C&F version being considered the standard unit. Both versions were equipped with a six-position automatic bulb changer using 12-volt bulbs.

Clifton marine engines

alt=Advertisement for "Clifton Marine Engines". Text says "1 to 6 cylinders, 10 to 80 H.P. Both Open and Closed Crank Case Types, for all classes of service." There are two photos of a large engine with an exposed flywheel, front and rear views.|thumb|Clifton Motor Works advertisement, Power Boating Magazine, November 1911

C&F produced gasoline engines for marine use in the early 1900s, marketed under the "Clifton" brand, and exported to as far away as New Zealand. Stock sizes were offered from to , with larger sizes advertised or available on special order.

Some of these engines were designed to include a variable number of cylinders, each of which produced ; for example, three cylinders could be ganged together to produce a engine. These used a single casting for the head and cylinder, with piston replacement done by unbolting the big end of the connecting rod and removing the piston through the bottom of the cylinder. Lubrication was automatic, with a pump drawing oil from a sump. Monitor, owned by the Fox Paper Company, was one of about six similar vessels built by Ohio Boat; some used the C&F Clifton engines; others used engines from Fairbanks, Morse or from Meitz & Weiss.

Other products

thumb|Gasoline-powered dynamo, 1912|alt=A photo of machinery. On the left is what appears to be a small gasoline engine with two flywheels. On the right, connected to the engine by a shaft, is what appears to be an electrical generator. These are mounted on a common base. Text reads "A small isolated light and power plant. Made by Carlisle & Finch Co. 229 E. Clifton Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio"

In 1897, C&F offered a hand-powered dynamo, capable of lighting a ten candlepower, ten-volt incandescent bulb, or to run several electrical toys simultaneously. They also offered a water-powered version, which produced a similar amount of electrical power from a water faucet supplying of pressure and could be used with as low as .

In 1923, a clothes dryer was introduced. The device used a wire mesh drum rotated by an electric motor. Air heated by either gas or steam was forced through the drum, with the temperature controlled by a thermostat. The machine was deep, wide, tall, and weighed .

Notes

References

  • Company web site