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Lasure Friction
Clutch Co
1921, Watertown
High School Orbit
To be entirely successful in the
manufacturing field, a concern must make either a product for which there is
sufficient universal demand to insure a market for all that can be produced by all
manufacturers in that line, or a patented article which is better, all things
considered, than those made by its competitors.
In the latter class we find the Lasure Friction Clutch Pulley. There have been friction
clutches on the market for many years, but it remained for an Iowa inventor to
perfect a clutch which overcomes the difficulties of other similar devices.
Perhaps not one person in a
hundred knows what a friction clutch is and what duties it performs. Automobile
drivers know that they sometimes have "clutch troubles," but many of
them would be at a loss to define this trouble, except to say that it is
mechanical rather than physical.
The Lasure
Friction Clutch Company, which has operated its plant in Watertown for a little
more than three years, confines its product so far to the tractor, gas and
steam engine, and shop requirements. Most persons have at some time seen a belt
running a loose pulley, and have seen this belt "shifted" to a tight
pulley, and some piece of machinery located at a distance from the engine,
started in that way.
By the use of a friction clutch
pulley the "tight and loose" pulleys are eliminated. The belt runs on
one pulley all the time, this pulley running "idle" after the engine
is started until by a pressure on the hand wheel or by the shifting of a lever
the clutch is thrown into engagement, and the machine to which the engine is
belted is started easily and gradually, without the jerk and jar so injurious
to machine and engine alike. The engine can be started naturally, and when it
has attained its maximum speed the load can be thrown on at any time; in case
of accident, or for any cause, the machine can be quickly stopped without
shutting down the engine.
Engines are made from one and
one-half horse power to sixty, eighty and even one hundred horse power, and Lasure Clutches are made in six sizes, to transmit any
power developed by the engine. Each size can be had with pulleys from six inch
to seventy-two inch diameter.
The Lasure
Company has added not a little to the outside trade of the city. Clutches
bearing its name, and advertising extensively the place of its manufacture, can
be found in practically every country and in every state in the union. They
have been adopted by more than two-thirds of the engine manufacturers of the
United States, and by several of the leading tractors, as a standard part of
their engine equipment. Repeated tests have proved the Lasure
to be more easily and quickly installed, of greater power and durability, and
operated with less effort than any other on the market.
From eight to twelve men are
employed in the Lasure Company. The output during the
first year's operation in Watertown amounted to about $20,000.00, and during
the third year approximately $35,000.00.
New designs, now building under contemplation, will add to its field of
usefulness, and there is no reason why the next two or three years should not
place this company among the largest of Watertown's manufacturers.
1921 FARM IMPLEMENT NEWS
Cross reference:
108-116 South Fifth, address in 1924 city directory.
History of Watertown,
Wisconsin