Oberlin Smith

Oberlin Smith ( born March 22, 1840 in Cincinnati, Ohio; † July 18, 1926 ) was an American entrepreneur and inventor.

Ferracute

In 1863 he founded with a cousin in Bridgeton (New Jersey), Laurel Street, the engineering plant Ferracute Machine Co. (1877 registered ) for presses, dies and other tools for sheet metal and metal processing and in the U.S. was the leading business for chipless forming work. Originally he supplied a manufacturer of tin cans. In 1873 he went into partnership with his brother Fred and moved the business to the east side of East Lake. When it burned down in 1903, the operation he kept the production going on the other side of the street. Later he also built minting machines for the Imperial Chinese coin. He also supplied, which was founded in 1898 by Emil Berliner Victor Talking Machine Company. From 1910 he was supplying Ford with presses.

His motto was "I can make a better one". In 1890, he became president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Magnetic recording

In the winter of 1877/78 he attended Edison, who had invented his phonograph in the summer. This roared and crackled him too much. On October 4, 1878, he filed a en: Patent a caveat to a magnetic recording, as he published ten years later.

In the Electrical World of 8 September 1888, he published a description of his method for sound recording with a metal chips containing cotton or silk thread. He also considerations to to use a solid steel wire, however, feared that the magnetization would it spread uncontrollably throughout the wire. Maybe he has built a working model, but it should have none survived.

On this basis, developed Valdemar Poulsen 1898 telegraphone.

1921/22, he also developed a remote-controlled disc changer for 50 plates called Autofono.