Sarns Machine

This Picture (Glass Plate) taken looking toward the Clinton River. Steamer in backgrond.

Tall young man at door with hand on hip is Maurice Augustus Sarns, owner/manager. Builder of early internal combustion engines also repairer of steam and gas engines. Maurice designed and built engines of from one to four cylinders in this small shop. All parts, patterns, crankshafts were made entirely in this small plant. Other parts like camshafts, pistons, rods, rings and many others too numerous were processed there too. After all we, in this present day of specialization by industries, don't realize that to build a machine, all parts had to be manufactured on the spot and could not be purchased at some supply house as it can be done today

Norman Sarns 1963

Youngest son of Maurice (1884-1959)

This shop (Originally Sarns and O'Brien) was located in Mount Clemens Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. You may notice that the building is quite tall. This is because at this time the machines were all run from a single power plant. Power was carried by a spinning drive shaft overhead. Each machine had power take-up from wide belts that could be tightened or loosened to engage the driveshaft. This was all a noisy and slightly dangerous process-- you will notice that sleeves are buttoned! As a result of this power system the building is quite long and extends back nearly to the river. Later, as electrical motors became less expensive, the machines were each supplied with individual power plants but still using the belt take-up.

My father built his first sailboat in the back of this shop. This was in the early years of the depression. Business at Sarns Machine was quite slow at the time. One paying job per week was good turnover! My father worked at tool and die for Packard Motors. He could afford abut one plank of aircraft quality lumber a week. On payday he would go to the lumberyard, cherry-pick for a good plank, shape and attach it to the hull, then stand back and smoke his pipe to admire his work. If the plank was flawed and split, he had to wait till next week. He'd salvage the wood for another part of the boat.

When the boat was complete, he removed the back wall of the shop and skidded it out into the Clinton River.

Here is a link to the current web page for Sarns Machine Inc.

Here is a link to a story about my cousin Dick Sarns', who developed and built heart-lung machines along with other medical equipment.

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