Did Henry Ford Use Old Shipping Crates For Floorboards In The Model T?
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- Did you know that Henry Ford had suppliers put their products in crates that ford required specific sizes and special kinds of wood so that Ford could use them for floorboards in the Model T? If you’ve been around anyone who loves to talk about old cars, eventually you will hear the story about Henry Ford using wooden crates for floorboards in his Model T. So is it true? Would Ford really use old crates? Well, there’s an old legend that if you tell a lie long enough, you begin to believe that lie as absolute truth. This legend is old, and told by many a person so let’s investigate it once and for all. I am going to talk about facts that I have researched and tell you what I believe. Then, you can decide for yourself!
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My 1930 Ford Town Sedan has eyebrow fenders and still has the original interior. It's certainly worn but it still is functional. I have rebuilt the driveline, suspension, and tie rods, installed a modernized Model A motor with oversized intake valves, insert bearings, and a high compression head. I also have a lightened flywheel and V8 clutch. The car comfortably cruises at 50MPH but I've had it up to 60MPH. I have also insulated and installed sound deadener which has made the car enjoyable to be in even at 90 degrees.
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Ken Smith Gallery
If he did, it would honestly be one of the most brilliant uses of packaging ever.
Hi and welcome to the channel. Thanks for your comment!
He did.
Was aware of this fifty years ago for my dad’s model A......
He was Crazy Like a Fox... Onenof My Late Father's Sayings. But When he was Alive... He was Always Early. Havha
Yes he actually did that, his friend "Kingsford" help make it happen.
When I built our 20' Cruising Yawl back in 1992, I used the plywood from packing crates for several of the bulkheads. The thing is, they were Philippine Mahogany, 5-ply, and glued with waterproof glues. They were free from where I worked, used to ship cast iron parts from India. The wood was beautiful! I also used the scraps from a dumpster in the back of a pool table factory... they were cast-off scraps which were too small for their uses, but many were perfect for many parts of the boat.
The video of the build is in my YT account.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Your build sounds beautiful!
My father bought his first Model T for $1 around 1930 when he was a teen. He had to assemble it but then ran it for several years. Good video.
What a great memory! Thanks for watching!
@@kensmithgallery4432 My father told, my brothers and I, bedtime stories. I was interested and remember many of them. He told of strange things that he saw in the Great Depression and WWII. I learned a lot from those stories. In 1936, he and 3 friends packed up a Model A touring car with a trailer and drove from NY to CA and back. He had a bunch of good stories from that. In 1975, I did the same thing with an old Chevy station Wagon. It was an adventure of a lifetime. Good Luck, Rick
Wow, 15 minutes of my life that did not waste on UA-cam, GREAT job, your pictures and commentary are amazing, subscribed
Hi and welcome to the channel! Thanks so much for your comment and for subscribing!
I always heard that Henry Ford specified the type of wood and specification or the crates that the radiator supplier was required to use in the shipping crates. The crates were used in the tops of model A's.
Hi and welcome to the channel! There are lots of stories told about those wood crates.
My dad told me many years ago that Henry had the engines for the Model A's, shipped to the assembly plant in nice wooden crates The crates weren't just 'thrown together.' They were nicely crafted and were later used to make the floor boards in our 1930 Model A. Dad bought it from the original owner in Erie, Pa. in 1965 before shipping off to Vietnam. The old girl sat in my Grandparents garage at 1431 Oakmont Ave until around 1999, when dad had a Model A club restore it. Dad has been gone for 16 years, but I still have the A as well as the A title, as the lady at the DMV told us. She said 'hang onto this', It's the original 1930 title where the first owner signed it over to my dad. Of course, the DMV sent us a new title when dad signed it over to me. I will pass it on to my Nephew in a few years. We both share my dads name right down to the middle initial.
It sounds like you have some very special memories of your father and his car!
Definitely a funny remark,"ford uses old wood fo floorboards in his new cars".... I guess most people dont understand how "old" a tree is when it is cut fown and milled into usable lumber....lol....some of those crates (re used) used to ship parts to the ford factories,well could have been hundreds of years old, remember thete were still huge trees being cut down for all sorts of uses,not only lumber but firewood,paper,pencils,im sure the list goes on,anyhow..... gotta love some Henry Ford,a great man in his own right.....
Hi and welcome to the channel. Yep, you gotta love Henry!
I read years ago that Henry kept a water glass 3/4 full of water in his bathroom that he would put his used razor blades into. He also stored his comb in that same glass. As the blades rusted it turned the water brown and Henry combed his hair with it dying his hair brown.
That is one I have not heard before. Thanks for watching!
The jig maker was the most highly skilled worker in the factory
I bet he was!
Thanks for putting this together. One note though. Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line. It was invented by Ranson E. Olds when he was manufacturing the curved dash Olds.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Thank you for your note!
Bzzzz .. wrong .. it was taken from meat processing plants .. butchers and hearing this is the 1st time in my Detroit based gearhead history buff ears have ever heard that
Ford didn't invent the automobile either. Ford just showed the world how to mass produce them.
Since he had his own foundrys I am sure that model Ts were melted down to make new model Ts. Wood?? Probably not though the waste wood could become briquettes, and as it was stated they recycled wooden boxes to send stuff back out.
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The crates weren’t old. They were just used. Today we call that recycling or waste reduction.
And Henry Ford was known for being resourceful. Thanks for watching!
Regardless of truth, i think this is a wonderful story of divergent thinking. The holistic approach to continuous improvement is exemplary. Disposing of waste is a cost attributed to one department, and the manufacturing of floorboards another dept. If Ford's approach was to simply squeeze suppliers for lower prices, this type of solution wouldnt be found. Good reminder to spend time framing problems and using divergent then convergent thinking.
Thanks for the video.
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What a great video. Loved the photos and videos and the production quality. For me, no, no floor boards from the factory. However I’m sure many cars were kept going with backyard repairs.
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He did. It's not a secret - you've only just found out. The left over bits were used to make charcoal in a plant also owned by Ford.
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I've been into Model T's since 1965, when I was 12, and have been ever since. I have several books on the T, including my favorite, "Henry's Wonderful Model T", by Floyd Clymer. and not once in the last 60 years have I ever heard about the floorboard issue. I think that Ken Smith is probably correct when he says that Henry used the crates to make more crates, rather than use them for floors. If he used the crates, then he would have to make his crates out of new wood, which doesn't make any sense. Other than the 'who cares about floorboards'' part, this video was informative and interesting.
Hi and welcome to the channel. Thanks for your story and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
If he is ordering crates made of a specific wood and size, they were not old crates. They also weren't free. When you buy something you are also paying for packaging. If he ordered crates to be a curtain size, it was probably cheaper to have low pay crate makers do it rather than pay his high paid workers. Ford had vast amounts of oak scaps from the manufacture of his cars. Instead of landfilling it, he built a charcoal plant and started a company called Kingsford . Ford was recycling long before it became the thing to do
He certainly was ahead of his time. Thanks for watching!
Ol' Henry's parsimonious life probably extended into his products. "waste not, want not." I have old Harley Davidson shipping crates a old dealer used to make shelves and display cases. 1920's.
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I have a Model T and it has all it's original wood including the floorboards. It doesn't look like they are made out of crates to me. It was made in the Highland Park plant.
Hi and welcome to the channel thank you for telling us about your model t.
My take on it is his vision was a profitable car that everyone could afford. If he reused lumber from crating for any other part of production it would only add to his genius. I knew he started Kingsford Charcoal to make use of wood waste from production of his cars. I think all things considered whether or not shipping crates ever made it into any part of Model T production is irrelevant and would only serve to further illustrate his frugality and dedication to his vision.
Hi and welcome to the channel. Thanks for your take on the subject!
That's a well known fact. Model Ts were shipped in freight containers, singly, knocked down and the shipping boards were designed to be used. It was planned that way from the Factory.
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I think Henry Ford would never ever allow this to happen and he would have fired an engineer on the spot for even mentioning it. If he found out an subcontractor was doing it he would have destroyed that company. Imagine the headlines at that time if he did. I can see the paperboy in my mind screaming "Extra, extra, read all about it. Ford scammed customers when buying a new car."
Repurposing shipping crates in the shipping department would be the way Ford saved money. It might even be used as fuel in his power plant or as supply for his briquets factory. He would have had plenty of options to repurpose them without risking a scandal. The diy fix would have been the most likely source of shipping crates ending up in a model T.
Hi and welcome to the channel. I agree with you!
Just MY comment, I think recycling crate wood is a FANTASTIC idea! Especially hard wood. It'll last a good long time!
Now if it was an issue then, what is anybody going to do about it in 2024? Nice video though!
Great point! Thanks for watching!
Wood is wood, its either alive or dead there is no "old" wood. There is "old growth" wood which is highly sought after as the growth rings are tight and usually of superior quality. Most packaging wood is "green" not kiln dried of lower quality cuts as that is all that is required of the task but that's not to say one couldn't write to a higher specification to be met. Just because a piece of wood travels for a short amount of time as crate doesn't make it a "less" piece of wood, in fact it gets better as it has time to dry out becoming more stable. Having taken an Air-boat ride with an old Cajun in the Louisianan swamps admiring the Cypress trees, the bitterness was real in his voice that FORD demanded their shipping crates to be made of Cypress (highly rot resistance) so they could be used for floor boards in the car. This is just prudent supply chain and material handling management on FORD's part. Not believing the Ash selection, not great choice too limited supply. Cypress for sure as its the best but moving to White Oak (not Red Oak - White Oak does not absorb water from end grain thus used in barrel making) from Michigan as infrastructure got in place. So, so article that needs more cross reference to production numbers vs year as supply chains evolve with demand. Look at the parts manifests shipped out of Louisiana.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I am more than satisfied with the hi level overview of the video. I suppose there may be some validity in a deep dive as you might suggest, but I also consider how many viewers would be that interested in that. Thanks for your comment!
Oooo I love a great detective story ! Friend , You may be on to something. The letter from Edsel to the customer may be suspicious , but the suppliers manifests are pretty hard to dispute. After watching your video , I believe that a lot of those crates were reduced to Kingsford briquettes.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I'm glad that you found this video interesting.
"No" but I learned a lot about charcoal briquettes..as a wood worker I would say the variations in thickness and flaws in the wood would make crates unsuitable. Too much effort to bring that stock up to spec.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I'm right there with you.
Not sure but knowing that Ford wanted to save money he probably did use the Old crates when he found out that he was not using the wood from them and they were going to waste.
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I find this hard to believe. First, plywood wasn't really a thing back then. So any and all crates would have been made of individual boards. You don't use your best lumber for crates, you use the warped or heavily knotted boards of random widths. You also attach them with copious nails. And as anyone who has ever disassembled a pallet can testify, the boards splinter and break easily when you are disassembling them. So it would not have been cost effective to try to rip apart crates, remove all the nails, fill all the nail holes, and excise all the badly knotted or warped or cupped or twisted boards. Would been a giant hassle, and a big waste of time and resources, to produce a low quality floorboard. Far easier to just set up a sawmill and that way every day you are starting with clean straight lumber which has been properly sanded and dimensioned.
Thanks so much for your detailed comment!
If Henery Ford did make use of left over packaging he was a pioneer in recycling.
Indeed! Thanks for watching!
Now we cut down trees to build another subdivision, then cut down more trees to build roads to the urban sprawl. Henry would be proud of us.
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If modern companies find a way to reuse ♻️ a lot of the materials that are considered scrap that will help to reduce emissions and contamination.
I absolutely agree! Thanks for watching!
My 1927 sedan had wooden crate floorboards. Of course I didn't buy this thing new.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I get it!
Yup, I restored a few using vintage crates.
Hi and welcome to the channel! That makes sense to me.
Ford used old Road signs as floors for late 60s Mustangs. It’s true, I took the carpet off a Mustang once and there they were, road signs riveted to the floor.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Wow!
@@kensmithgallery4432 Thank you! Also, I was kidding about the road signs. Love the channel!
Alfred P Sloan the boss of General Motors as a young man sold motor accessories such as bearings made by his family's business. According to his book "my years at general motors" when he got an order to supply Ford he was instructed the shipping cases HAD to be to a specific design. He said he wondered why until he later saw the crates being used to make floorboards on the production lines.
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In Denmark, the transport boxes were used in the cars, these are facts.
Welcome to the channel! Thanks for letting us know!
Actually, any historian of automotive history will tell you that Olds of Oldsmobile was using the assembly line before Ford
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ol' Henry HATED waste, the fact that there was all these scrap pieces of wood used to built the T drove him nuts, he was also an avid camper and came up with charcoal, then turned the pattern over to his buddy Kingsford, TADAAA !!! (soofcoursehedid)
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I do think Ford told the truth and yes as today people find all kinds of crazy ways to fix floor boards; they did the same at that time. It still would have been a practical thing to do and they could have call the Model T, the Model T-CW (Crate Wood) and given the appropriate discount. They hadn't at that time worked out the status symbol emblems we have today on automobiles.
Hi and welcome to the channel. That is an interesting thought about a T-CW you suggest.
Henry Ford was a bad ass…. Sure would be cool if he could see how his company is run today.
I don’t think he would like it.
Hi and welcome to the channel. He was quite the genius.
Thats where floorboads. Floorboards. Description came. From
Thanks for watching!
The most obvious answer to the question is NO. Where would Ford get Old Crates? When you think about it, a company shipping parts to Ford for immediate use would not be using Old wood or old Crates.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Don’t let any of this distract from the fact that early 20th century “scrap” crate wood was of much higher quality than any finger jointed wood boards imported from South America and used in modern day homes today…
Hi and welcome to the channel! That may be true but scrap is still scrap, at least that's my thinking process. Thanks for watching!
manufacturing and speed in building so may cars // in on time /to keep production at 90% to 100% for assembly as in routing none stop car building //any change would shut down lines at Ford plants as the color and old wood to be used would being down Old Henry to the line //faster them you can read this /line stop //no way in hell would Ford slow or replace any of his production or products //GOOD DAY
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A real wooden floor is an upgrade for most homes, why isn't a real wooden floor available in cars, anymore?
Great point! Thanks for watching!
In 2021, I was going through the neighborhood and an older woman had a few things in her yardsale and there was a Ford model T tool box with the tools inside for $20 ( I remember reaching in my pocket faster then the lone ranger in a shoot out lol I couldn't stop admiring the tools and the wooden box on my way home I stopped to get some water at the 711 store and after I got back in my truck _ someone stolen it
Hi and welcome to the channel. That's horrible!
This is a great video! I really enjoyed the history lesson.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Glad you enjoyed it!
610 pounds of brickettes from 2000 pounds of sawdust doesn't sound very efficient to me.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I appreciate your opinion.
Why not, as long as the wood is fit for purpose.
After all, a penny saved is a penny earned and we all know old Henry was a tight arse..
Hi and welcome to the channel. I save all the pennies I can!
I think that Ford, being innovative, could have offered the low-cost option of re-purposed wood from crates. Folks then were keenly interested in saving a buck. That could have gone very far, indeed. IMHO
Hi and welcome to the channel! That's a theory I have not heard before!
@@kensmithgallery4432 not a theory, but just a resourceful idea of mine.
If he did, who cares? He was saving money and repurposing the wood. You can maybe almost call him the first recycler.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I guess you could call him that.
The logistics of using various dimensions of scrap wood for floorboards is too complex. You could do it, but as a business it would be better to manufacture the exact boards needed. "String saving" is never worth it!
Yep! I agree! Thanks for watching!
He probably did ,he was a genius that was frugile and I can see him recycling floors from crates
Hi Tony and welcome to the channel. He indeed was both.
Ford's frugality was legendary, as was a little bit of awe with his operation. I found an old joke book in my grandfather's stuff, and inside there was one about a farmer who tore down his old barn. He was left with a pile of rusty tin and his neighbor suggested the Ford Motor company might be able to use it. He packed it up and sent it off. Six weeks later there was a Model T in his driveway. It had a note on it that read," Dear sir, your car was the worst wreck we have ever seen, but we have fixed it and returned it to you for many more years of motoring," Ford Motor Company
Hi and welcome to the channel! What a great story.
🎵Im just a little hunk of tin
Nobody knows What shape im ln
Not anymore. Today they want to know are you going to sue?
I’m an Architect and I find “real“ recycling in old buildings and furniture all the time. My favorite was metal ductwork made from potato chip cans. Crate wood is common in furniture and buildings.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Thanks for sharing your findings!
In the seventies we always heard about Toyota Corollas using Schlitz beer cans for the car bodies!
I live in Bulgaria now - the old Soviet-era mindset of recycling is still prevalent. Every gym has old mining conveyor belt on the floor as rubber mats. Its 5 feet wide, 1 inch thick, cut it to length, clean and polish it and it will last the life of the gym.
No one buys anything new if they can find a way of reusing something.
I have seen roofing shingles made from old metal cans that had contained cyanide. It was in an old mining ghost town, where cyanide was used in the extraction of gold from the ore. The shingles are clearly imposed with the word cyanide.
Did lots of Demo when I was a kid . It was so much fun finding treasures in those old buildings.
My dad bought all the display cases from a Newberry's store that was closing, He took all the hardwood facing on the display cases and recycled them into the trim wood on his Kitchen cabinets and baseboard molding on our remodeled house. Beautiful colorful and a huge luster on all surfaces. Best recycle ever. My dad said "A good craftsman lets nothing go to waste".
What a great memory. Thanks for sharing!
The term "old crates" is used several times in this video. Wouldn't the wood packing crates holding new parts - for the assembly of new Model T's - themselves be new or fresh? With the production numbers of new Model T's increasing every model year (as quoted in the video), The volume of new parts being fed to assembly line workers (and therefore the packing crates that contained them), in all Ford plants, must have been tremendous.
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Yes, but it sounds more sinister to call them old packing crates. Wood is wood, as they say. Doesn't anybody say that? No? Darn!❤
@@SuperChicken666 Part of the problem is that wood isn't wood. Or more specifically, Not all wood is created equal. When you start separating wooden logs into separate boards/planks, different parts of the log are going to yield different quality wood. Shipping containers typically utilize the lowest quality wood available, the type with knots and grains that aren't straight. It makes sense too, because those crates are going to take a beating, but nobody cares how good a crate looks, if the part inside is safe.
Even on something as seemingly insignificant as a floorboard, quality matters. Given more time to think it over, I am far more certain today that Henry Ford would not have used shipping crates as part of the furniture in his cars. I do consider floorboards to be furniture.
@@Skyfighter64 seriously everyone wants to adore something that appears smart it's gross. the crates absolutely sat in yards waiting to get used not in warehouses which is fine if you're not gonna use it
@@Skyfighter64omg stfu the board were fine quit trying to be an internet know it all when you’re more clueless than most.
I did my term paper in 1967 on "The history of the American automobile of the 20th century" and I remember one of my sources for this term paper indicated that Henry Ford purchased transmissions and rear ends from the Dodge brothers and he firmly had an agreement from then that those items be shipped in wooden crates that specifically were of a certain size and already had holes drilled in them so they could be used for floor boards for some of his cars. I do believe this to be true. They were not old shipping crates but new ones already to be used in some of his cars.
Hi and welcome to the channel. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
It wouldn't even be just "saving money" - he'd still be paying for that wood, and for the modifications to make the crate fit what he's building. Yes, there are some savings, but the biggest part is that he only has to order the wood _once_.
I’m from New Zealand and was told about model T crate floorboards by my father and told it was this type of build savings that enabled the average worker to buy their first car and get customers for life.
I say....bullsh!t. Just because someone wrote down an OPINION is not primary evidence.
Interesting! I always had the feeling that Ford Motor company always borrowed ideas from other car manufacturers and adopted a wait and see attitude until going ahead with it too!
And frugality with Ford still shows when it comes to parts and use of materials! Paint is not a strong point, (premature rust) as with Dodge
Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Edward Kingsford, and Harvey Firestone formed an enduring professional and personal attachment through their shared enthusiasm for innovation, scientific advancement, and a genuine sense of boyish adventure. I can't imagine why the story of these four hasn't become a major motion picture.
That would be cool!
❤
The model T was shipped unassembled in a crate by rail… one car per crate. They were shipped to finishing plants all over the country. He was able to ship so many more cars that it covered the plant and the labor and still added to the profits.
It would be super easy for the floor of the crate to be cut out and used as a floor.
As you indicated, he reused all crates though.
But if people saw crates, and then saw a ‘plywood’ floor, I could see people putting 2 and 2 together.
@Project_Low_Expectations. ALL Of The Old Pictures That I've Seen Of Model T Ford's, Were Being ASSEMBLED AT THE FACTORY, Driven Out Of The Factory, Lined Up Outside Waiting For Shipment, And WERE ALL Completely Assembled. So Your Comment About Putting Cars Together At A Dealership Doesn't Hold Water. There ARE A Few Pictures Of Some Cars Partially Assembled Sitting Outside Of Dealerships, For Those Customers That Wanted THEIR OWN Bodies Installed On Them. Like Maybe Taxis, Small Busses, Delivery Trucks Or Other Applications. But NOT The Average Customer That Wanted The Bodies That Ford Advertised...
@@davemckolanis4683
I said finishing plant… not dealer.
Here’s a wiki about the one here in Columbus. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company_-_Columbus_Assembly_Plant
I didn’t explain it very well last night when I posted my comment. But the wiki link explains it better.
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Why is every letter in your reply capitalized? I don't believe I have ever seen that in any comment or reply.@@davemckolanis4683
Not being picky but the wood back then was not plywood. That was made later i believe. Real wood is just wood and if wood was used from the crates then is is slightly used wood by one as long as the crates were fresh new wood when it was cut from the tree it was born from.
I first heard that story in the late 60s and it made perfect sense. The crates contained one gearbox each with the crate panels drilled with holes by the gearbox supplier in exactly the place Ford wanted them. When the crates went to the factory floor they were disassembled and the crate panels were taken to the floor and body work station. It's simple, cost saving and clever. What is there not to believe? Obviously Henry would have denied it but he did many things he should not have done. (Another story about Ford was that there were so many workers' lunch wrappers floating around the factory, it paid the company to collect and recycle them.)
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This is also the story I heard. The use of the word "Old" in video is very misleading and to my mind incorrect. It makes perfect, as every car needed 1 gearbox and 1 set of floorboards.
i wouldn't say he "should not have done" this. It's simply cost-effective. Wood is wood.
Why should he not have done it? He'd be paying for the crate, the specifications for the construction, and the item inside. It'd just be saving having to bring in wood _twice_, plus disposing of the crate(s).
yeah same as the ww2 and indian story's its same thing in the end only a few brands and people where better after the wars and also the car brands exists because of ww2 it aint hard 2 believe its the truth
I heard Ford used pallets to mak Charcoal briquettes. They would not be "old" crates, it makes sense to use whatever to produce product. I remember a card in the glove box of an Internation Harvester truck that listed the origin for any 'replacement' assemble (i.e. brakes, starter, et cetera) @7:52, That guy is Not whispering a secret to Edison, Edison was going Deaf. The guy is shouting into Edison's ear.
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Edison was experimenting in a train car and caught it on fire. The conductor grabbed Edison by the ear and tossed him off the train. That was the start of Edison's hearing problems.
If you've ever tried taking apart a palette to salvage the wood, and use it to make something else, you know it's barely worth it. If you're young, and starting out, and have more time than money, you can reuse wood to make a one-of project that shows off your capabilities. For mass production, it's so much better economy to chop down a forest, saw the logs into planks, ticker them, and use them as they get dry enough.
In those days, they used what was called a "common" nail. Today, crates/pallets are either stapled, nailed with ring shank nails, or occasionally a cc sinker nail. Common nails were....well...common right through the 1950's when the cc sinker started taking over. Common nails come apart very very easily so reusing a pallet or crate back then would be different than trying to do it today.
@@smartysmarty1714 Shipping Crates Have ALWAYS Been Made Of 2nd Hand Wood. So It Would Be STUPID For Ford, (Or ANY Car Manufacturer), To Use Sub Standard Products In A NEW CAR. Wheel Spokes With Soft Crate Wood Having Cracks And Knots In It Would Be A Quality DISASTER. And Sagging And Splintering Crate Wood Floors Would Soon END The Car Sales Pretty Quick...
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Didn't they have a slang term for the Model T were they referred to it as an old crate?
Being in the engine business in south Louisiana we had customers who got whatever they requested when it came to packageing. And we had to wrap their purchases in a specific color plastic wrap and wood pallets of specific sizes. This was just for product safety. I read that Ford had requirement for vendors to use certain wood types and sizes. You certainly not want your competition to know this. Take care.
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I worked for a man in his early eighties and he said he worked for ford making floor boards and lumber in the truck beds. His collection of manuals from ford for repairing the car... this manual got away from me. There were five of them that were published but the ones I had were the hand set type writer style, and the pictures used inside were hand drawn to show different stuff. "Albert Rosco Wilson" was this mans name whom I worked for in the fifties.... he married a woman whose name was Lanora May Wilson and she did the cooking, they had been together since the late nineteen hundreds as like 1890 something. She also said her husband at that time.... they did not like "Old Henry Ford" and had some choice names but not swear words, about one crew who was just to inspect those crates before disassembly, and here you ask "why take apart"??? and so to answer it was ; At that time, Ford couldn't afford to make his own engine blocks so he contracted it out. After so many engine blocks were ready to ship, those pallets had to be a certain size requirement. He would not pay and refused shipment of any that the crate did not meet specifications. Another crew was responsible to disassemble them. Men got fired if they broke any of them. He said to me, thats Albert Rosco Wilson, that he was fired and hired back three times in one day. He said it was a great day because Ford paid on the spot if you were fired. I believe the wage was around five dollars a day and then increased to around ten dollars at its highest pay... thing was if you were fired, you left that plant immediately. If you say had four dollars and eighty cents wage coming because they figured it out as a hourly if fired and you didn't get the whole days wage. Anyway, the four dollars and eighty cents was rounded to five and then you left. Now your twenty cents up on wage right?? Well he gets hired right back on with a touch of incentive pay.... and a few hours go by and he got fired again.... same scenario plus that incentive pay. Long and short of it was he got paid that night for the days worked and his wages from the incentive plus the round up money which he said was close to a dollar.... a dollar would get you ten pounds of hamburger to cook... your money was worth something. Yes a good many stories from him. "Rocky" as we named Albert was a straight eight gentleman whom was a pleasure plus my own personal friend
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@morgansword
Paragraphs. Try using them.
G'day from Australia. Good video, but I may have an acceptation.
Australia had large import tariffs on complete cars, so it was common practice to import the running chassis and build the bodies locally. Model T's were imported from Canada (Commonwealth country, reduced tariffs) with bodies made by various body builders including Holden (before GM buyout), who made the best Model T bodies in Aust.
Holden's official history states that they certainly did use the crates as floor boards of Model T's. There is even a report of them taking down a corrugated iron fence, and feeding the sheets through the presses. This was due to steel shortages during the depression.
This was an 'end of the line' factory, on the other side of the world where only complete cars went out the gate. If the crates are usable, then don't wast them. Or you can pay to get rid of them.
Ford eventually built a factory to produce the 1960 Falcon, and another story: When building the factory, a local engineer asked the American engineer "why is the roof so heavy duty?" And was told " This is the same design as in Michigan, and the same design is used everywhere around the world, and Henry saves a lot of money on architects." To which the local answered "But, we're never gonna get 8 feet of snow in Melbourne. One inch was the record".
Another story might be how that factory almost closed, just a few years later.
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I bet Ford's Aussie employees were thankful for that heavy duty roof when the drop bears fell.
Holden would know...as they at one point in history were building (in Adelaide I think?) the 'Deluxe' Model T Ford bodies for Tarrant Motors Pty Ltd in Melbourne.
The first Ford Plant to open in Australia was in 1925 at Geelong in Victoria.
The Australian 1932-1934 Fords had a partial steel floor at the rear of the car - and the front to middle (or whatever) was made of wood.
To me it's possible that Australian Model T Fords up to 1934 Fords used wood from shipping crates for floorboards...though I think they used ash wood for the
actual body frames when possible?
There was also a number of Model T Ford cars in sold in Australia between 1909 and 1916 (brass radiator models) that had imported bodies - instead of locally coach made.
I think these complete cars came from Canada (already RHD) in large boxes...and required partial assembly here?
When I herd this story there were details that are not included in this video, that would indicate that the crates were NOT made of old scrap wood. The details being that Ford told the suppliers that he wanted the crates out of a specific wood and that the crates were a specific size and shape and were not nailed together, instead using screws so as it would be faster for opening the crates and without damaging the wood. According to what I herd the wood from the crates were already cut to shape to fit in the model T with out having to spend time cutting the wood to the right shape and size. Weather this is true or not, it does conflict with the argument that it would be too time consuming for his workers to salvage the wood to make model T's
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That's pretty much the story my father told me as well. With the added detail that Ford had sent the shipper the cut sheet so the panels were already drilled at prescribed distances so they could be mounted in the car with fasteners using the holes to put the bolts through.
heard.
Also what a VP of Production told us during part of a "Work Smarter, Not Harder" exercise. Very carefully specified panels for transmission shipping crates so they would bolt right in to the car frame. The only real thing missing from that story is Why would a shipping crate need to have those slots cut out of them (shown in the photos for pedals and levers)?
@@gregbrooks3577 and Whether !
There is a similar legend relating to William Lyons (Jaguar Cars), with his first cars, the Swallows, the interior door trims were made from old packing crates. This could make sense as the reverse side of these are rough saw and the finished faces were smoothed & were with a routed edge detail and then given a paint effect of mahogany. However, the quality of the wood is knot-free and is described as a "white wood", but from what species of tree, no-one seems to know. My view is the quality is much better than is needed for a packing crate!
We do know that after the Second World War, the Austin Motor Co., then BMC (British Motor Corporation) set up a factory in Wales manned by disabled miners, using off-cuts of metal from the main manufacturing plants to fabricate a child's pedal car - the J40 and also the Pathfinder. An ingenious use of waste, and gave a disabled labour force an economic value.
Another ingenious use of waste material is the body panels for the East German Tranbant, waste cotton from Russia was formed into a sort of plastic - brilliant!
Interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Thanks for sharing your information too!
I received a monthly leaflet as a Ford employee around 20 years ago. It had reference to Ford telling suppliers to ship parts in wooden containers at a specific dimension and wood type, I think it was oak, to continue doing business with Ford. Then the wood was used in production.
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I read about workers at the Ford Torino plant workers in the seventies skipping a lot of the screws required to assemble the dashboard on Fridays to get out of the plant earlier, and a friend of mine who worked there confirmed that, and other things simply left out! So I am not surprised!
@@agems56That doesn’t make sense as not putting all the parts on a vehicle doesn’t change the production hours. How would that even have anything to do with the topic of this video.
Quota system!
Has nothing to do with Ford using wood from crates @@agems56
The unused wood was charred and formed into charcoal briquettes to be used for grills and heating. Yes, the Kingsford charcoal, as we know it, was from Ford.
Yes, apparently Henry saw a huge pile of wooden circles and asked what they were and was told they are the holes in the dashboard we fit the instruments into. Henry then had them ground up and turned into charcoal briquets.
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In a plant designed by ... Thomas Edison
@@bronsonwhite611 with electricity by way of Nikola Tesla's alternating current.
I don't think so, Ford wanted to save time, using old stuff is never time saving
I agree having worked in factories new is inexpensive and consistant If He indeed built the model t at the rate of an hour and a half used crates would have taken too much time ! I was a shipping crate builder at one factory.
Great Story !
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It is not "old stuff", it is new stuff milled to specifications! If he made plywood for brass era firewalls and pressed the sawdust into charcoal he wouldn't bought expensive wood. They weren't complex structural coach building components, just floorboards.
Reusing creates was a common practice. Considering how much lumber they'd need, I'm doubtful they could have relied on the lumber available from crates.
Hi and welcome to the channel. I agree with you.
Not so. There's the crate sitting beside the assembly line. Manufactured by the transmission builder from fresh lumber to exact specifications from Ford. Take the crate apart into six panels, install the transmission in the car, and drop the panels into the appropriate locations IN THE SAME CAR. Not saying Ford did that, but there would not be any "not enough floorboards" problem. Ford could even have a floorboard manufacturer shipping panels to the transmission manufacturer to be used temporarily as sides of the crates for shipping to the assembly plant.
Very interesting! I had not heard that said about the floor boards, but I can see how it would be easily conjured up and passed on. I also found the origin of Kingsford charcoal very interesting!
Yes, me too. And curiously enough, "ford" is in the name Kingsford!
Hi and welcome to the channel! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I'm going to assume that wood from crates was an abundant free repair material. There was no shortage of men skilled enough to joint boards, glue them to make a panel and cut them into a finished floor, or even repair just a section. People of the era were much handier.
BUT @14:14 would Henry have used man power to salvage crates for floor boards? Well let's look back to @8:56 he didn't seem to have an issue using labor to disassemble crates in order to build new crates from the reclaimed wood.
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First year of model T 1908 Sept
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My father owned a tavern outside of Detroit in the 60 s and 70s. One of the patrons claimed to be a witness to the using of the crates for floor boards early on in the model T production. He also related the story that when the Highland Park Plant was being built Ford insisted the floor being poured in the show room be perfectly level. Upon completion Ford poured a cup of water into a cup walked to the middle of the floor and poured the water onto the floor. He then observed that the water began to run off indicating that the floor was not perfectly level and ordered it to be redone. The purpose of this was that at the time seals not being up to modern standards he did not want any leaking oil to run out from under his models on display in the showroom.
Thanks for sharing this story!
@@kensmithgallery4432early ford dealers in our town kept their inventory cars on the roofs of dealers. Since they were located in town main street. In old articles photos of T BEING STOTED ON ROOFS. WHEN THEY DEMO. THE BUILDING IN 2014PART OF THE RAMP WAS STILL THERE ALONG WITH SHADOW PAINTED ON WALL. LEADING TO ROOF THE PARTS DEPT WAS OUTLINED TOO BUT SIGNAGE PAINTED OVER
@@gerry-p9x The all caps convinces me!
My family's company was Eggers Plywood Manufacturing Company of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, founded in 1888. In the early 1950s, my father told me the story that the Company had a contract with Ford for seating, and that the contract specified how the shipping containers were to be built so the containers could be used for flooring. My father (born in 1899, US Navy 1917-1935, then company president) probably didn't personally deal with the Ford contract, but his father, my grandfather, most certainly did. I'm strongly inclined to believe the story.
Hi and welcome to the channel! That is some insightful information. Thank you for sharing.
I've been to your family's company many times, only at the shipping dock though.
@@shortmoneytrucker964 Nice to hear. The old original buildings on the river in Two Rivers, or the new building across from the Two Rivers High School? Or in Oshcosh?
Amazing history I had no idea Henry Ford had a charcoal division. If our country was less regulated we could have a lot more creativity in this country.
Ford did not believe in wasting his resources. Thanks for watching!
I thought I read somewhere that some of the components for the model t were shipped to the factory in boxes engineer designed to be easily pulled apart and used as floor boards without any further cutting or measuring. Sounds either a very clever idea or a very good story.
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Using packing crates for floor boards makes for a good story, but is absolutely false. It never happened. The stories perpetuate the myth. It would have been a brilliant move, but didn't happen.
All I know is Chevy used 16 oz Budweiser cans slit up the side and installed with hose clamps on their exhaust systems. I know because I saw one once.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Nope! It was Miller....and so goes the Can Wars :-)
@@kensmithgallery4432 ah...but how many hose clamps?
@@talltom1129 You got me there!
Someone on the internet stated Kurt Cobain was a cast member in Glee, so it must be true.
With the thickness changed and gluing boards together to produce the floorboards, the shipping, crate boards could have been planed down and glued together, and there would be no way to distinguish them from any other properly age to wood of the same type. Especially since he specified how old the crate was to be made and the size and support to the crate it’s quite likely crates we use floorboard and other car parks. There is a good chance that Ford was providing the wood for the crates and it came from the same factory that would guarantee that the crate boards would be indistinguishable from any other boards in the car and be of the type of wood and was cut to the thickness of the boards he was using before it was plainer for final use. They would then be plained and put into the floorboard stock.
Hi and welcome to the channel. That certainly makes sense and I could see that as a possibility.
The story I've always heard said that Ford used BRAND NEW shipping crates, built by specific size and shape orders, to made their car floors, and not USED ones. The reason was, supposedly (according to the story), that box manufacturers charged less than skilful carpenters of that time. Only a disassemble of the boxes was necessary at the plant and the floor boards were ready to install in the cars. Well... I don't believe in this story as well.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I am right there with you and don't believe it either. But I also know many people do and I respect their opinions.
It’s well known the Henry Ford was extremely frugal,he was an original recycler he reused everything,at why the model T was so inexpensive, I help restore one that still had the name of the supplier on the bottom of the floor boards
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He didn't use old crates for floorboards. He used new crates for floorboards.
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What I have read over the years is that Ford specified crate size, material, holes, etc from parts suppliers. Once parts were removed the crate was cut and used as lower body.
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My dad restored a 1921 T. The original floorboards did have two ship to addresses at the River Rouge plant so they had to do some wood recycling. I doubt the containers were exact sized for the floorboards based on how the addresses were on the underside of the floor,
Hi and welcome to the channel! Thank you for sharing a little family history!
River Rouge plant still exists.
Great video. I have heard this urban legend for years including the only color you could ever get on a Model T was black. For the number of years of production and the original color charts being available you learn to know better. Did Henry not waste, yeah he was a farmer at heart and farmers back then did not waste. Everyone likes a good story from the past, but I don't think it's was a cost efficient option for a mass production since he had the material and facilities to make new product happen. If anything, I would say that many of the crates became charcoal and others went home with a worker. If you were a worker and dad's old Model T was damaged or bad, could you have taken Ford crates to remake the floor? I would have and laughed saying it was genuine Ford. Henry would have done it as well in the early years. As many businesses that were mad at Ford for increasing wages or when unions were battling Ford there would articles in news print or even the fact the fact it was used to bring down the cost of the Model T would have hit the news. Considering how big Yellow Journalism was in those days Hearst or Pulitzer would have made multiple articles on it.
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This video was truly enlightening and perfectly dissproves a myth that, I'd heard often but never really believed. Another "Henry Ford" tale was that he used the wire from these same crates for connecting rods to operate the brakes on the Model T. I think that we can safely assume that your video solves this myth with the same solution.
Thanks for your response and for watching!
Thank you for a detailed story. I hadn't heard about reusing crates for shipping parts back out, but it makes sense. I would think there would still be a lot of leftover wood. I do recall my friend's granddad telling us his job delivering Fords from the rail depot, here in Oregon. These were the basic chassis and the temporary driver's seat was actually the crate containing all the other bits for final assembly. They'd drive them away and to the shop that'd build the truck body.
Hi and welcome to the channel! There could have been. I honestly don't know what was left and what was done with it. I only researched the floorboard myth.
@@kensmithgallery4432 Maybe sent to Kingsford? As you said, he didn't like waste... and aged sawdust makes better briquettes.
Actually the wood being harvested at the time was old (growth) wood right from the tree. Additionally I see nothing wrong with minimizing waste and maximizing profit and the development of new products.
Thanks for commenting and for watching!
If true, he was a shrewd businesses man. Wood scraps a sawdust became Kingsford charcoal. So, used wood for floorboards would not surprise me.
@williamforbes5826 Think About It. Would YOU Buy A NEW CAR With 2nd Hand Crate Wood Used In Manufacturing It. Would You Feel Safe Driving Along With Knot Holes And Cracks In Your Wheel Spokes, Ready To Collapse??? Or Your Floor Would Soon Start To Splinter And Sag??? Once The Word Got Out About Ford 2nd Hand Quality, His Sales Would Be RUINED...
Hi William and thanks as always for your comment!
@@kensmithgallery4432
It 'wood' appear that some people take umbrage with the idea of repurposed wood. They should see the 'used' and recycled parts that we put into '23 new cars! Oh, well. Thanks for the controversial video!
@@williamforbes5826 I knew it would be and as long as people are not nasty, I won't have to press the delete key!
The previous owner of my house was a technical drawing teacher , all the presses were made from Volkswagen crates, beetle cars were assembled in Dublin shipped from Frankfurt from the 1950's.
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one vote for nope...he didn't. he went to the trouble to do vanadium steel in his cars so i also can't see him recycling crates except for packaging and briquettes.
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What I do know, is that Ford was obsessive when it comes to saving costs. If something could be re-used, then he would find a way to use it. He was the ultimate recycler of his day. Hell, he even raised the wages for his factory workers against the suggestion of his finance department, with the firm belief that if the workers were more satisfied in their pay, they would work more efficiently, such as the floor sweepers making sure dropped tools didn't get thrown out.
That said, I believe your assessment is correct. It would just be too expensive/time consuming to try to turn packing crates into floorboards, mostly because packing crates wouldn't generally be made out of furniture grade wood.
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Interesting video. I had never heard of this myth before.
Also you used some excellent pictures in the video.
Good information on Ford's lumber operation, and the charcoal briquettes. Years ago I had read a quick reference to the Kingsford Charcoal connection in a book about the Dearborn Plant. It was extremely brief, and didn't have nearly the info you provided in your side story.
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Henry Ford was a wild man. Ford did it all. He was the king of vertical integration. From out of the ground to into the consumers hands it was all Ford.
He was king of vertical integration as well as limited waste. Thanks for watching!
My grandfather worked for Ford, was friends with him. My grandfather told that Ford ordered axle shipping boxes for the floorboards to meet certain dimensions
. Ford even specified two holes be drilled in the sides of the crates where the two pedal shafts were located. Makes perfect sense to do that.
Hi and welcome to the channel! Thanks for sharing this cool story!
if i remember the history of ford he tried to control the products used in the building of his cars. i seem to remember he had a forest that furnished the wood needed. i forget all the details but i'm pretty sure he had holding all over the world that furnished the products needed. and Kingsford was related to ford through his wife and was most likely responsible for the charcoal, but old henry always took the credit for anything to do with his company, kinda like the ford tractor that looked exactly like the Ferguson tractor.
Hi and welcome to the channel! I mentioned the forest and sawmill he built in the Upper Peninsula in this video. Thanks for your comment.
My grandfather was a blacksmith. In the 1920's he converted a 1917 Model T touring car into a mobile blacksmith shop complete with forge, vise and anvil. Thus he could service road building contractors by shoeing their horses and repairing equipment. Farmers also appreciated having him come to their farms to perform the same tasks on the farm. There was little cash in rural America in the 20s. Often he would barter half a hog or a quarter of beef or other farm produce as payment. My dad said that because their house was paid for, they always had a roof over their head. Furthermore he stated the wolf was never at the door, but on a snowy morning you could find wolf tracks in the yard. In the winter of 1932-33 the she-wolf came in, lay down behind the stove and had pups.
What a cool story! Thanks so much for sharing and for watching!
In 1997, at an engineering company I worked for, we had a large legacy of standards, restricting engineers in materials, dimensions and all kinds of things. As a new engineer, it was my duty to read all those standards. I came across one that said, "mahogany shall not be used for tooling plates, February 1969". That was an early one because the company started in 1965. Since every standard was dated, you could see the progression. It was always unfortunate that the standards did not include reasons. I could just imagine the berating an engineer got in 1968 that led to this stunning new standard.
Fascinating story! Thanks for sharing!
Different woods have different physical attributes (and, most particularly costs) associated with them. So it is certainly not surprising to see a spec like this where mahogany, an expensive wood renowned for its beauty and straight grain (figure) would not be wasted on a presumably little seen structural component when another, cheaper wood might work just as well.