National Acme

During 1893 Edwin Henn and Reinhold Hakewessell developed their multiple spindle automatic lathe in Hartford, Connecticut and received a patent for their design in December, 1894.
Their first commercial model, a four spindle, one inch capacity machine, became known as an Acme built by The Acme Screw Machine Company in Connecticut.

In 1901 The Acme Screw Machine Company merged with one of its large customers, The National Manufacturing Company. The newly merged company became known as The National Acme Company located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

In 1907 a competitor in Windsor, Vermont introduced a 4 spindle bar machine known as the Gridley. In 1915 this competitor was acquired by The National Acme Company and the machines then became known as Acme- Gridleys(R). In 1928 the Company introduced the famous six spindle machine.

The Company experienced tremendous growth building new machines in the Vermont plant and running machines making customers' products in the Cleveland plant. During the 30's the Vermont operation was merged into the Cleveland plant.

Over the years, eight spindle bar machine models were added in various sizes and chucking type machines were made in 4, 6 and 8 spindle models. Many machines were built and exported around the world. License agreements were also made with other companies to manufacture the Acme-Gridley Machines in Europe and Asia.

The high durability of these machines and their time tested production efficiency have made the Acme-Gridley a "must have" machine in every metalcutting industry today.