The Carbine Collectors Club

Click on the image above to learn more about the M1 Carbine


Forum Home Forum Home > The Club > Club Requests and Member Submissions
  New Posts New Posts
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Register Register  Login Login


Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message
newsman3 View Drop Down
newsmen
newsmen


Joined: Apr 04 2019
Status: Offline
Points: 29
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (3) Thanks(3)   Quote newsman3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory
    Posted: Aug 01 2021 at 8:57am

Member Michael Shyne recently visited the Hillerich & Bradsby  "Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory" in Louisville, Kentucky



Many of you are familiar with the famous baseball bat, but some of you may not have known that Hillerich & Bradsby was a wartime subcontractor to Inland and Standard Products producing carbine stocks and to a lesser extent some stocks for Quality Hardware and Machine Company

A mural on the wall depicts stocks being sanded by women workers, a first at H&B.



Carbine stocks on the drip rack after being dipped into Raw Linseed Oil. Look at those beauties!




Carbine stock made by H&B on display in a glass case.
Card description: From 1942-45, Hillerich & Bradsby converted their golf factory to make M1 Carbine gunstocks out of hickory wood for the US Armed Forces. H & B averaged 1800 gunstocks per day for a total of more than 1.5 million.

H&B was also known for their golf clubs. During the war they also produced track pins for tanks, billy clubs for the armed forces as well as baseball and softball bats for the troops.


If you are in the Louisville area swing by and check out the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory


Editors Note: Ordnance specified walnut wood to be used. Later, due to supply, birch and cherry was used to a limited degree. Though hickory and walnut are in the same family and similar, hickory was much harder and may have been tougher on tooling.
The display also mentions finishing lacquer being wiped on stocks but it was actually raw linseed oil that was specified.


Edited by New2brass - Aug 01 2021 at 10:32am
Back to Top
Charles View Drop Down
Grunt
Grunt
Avatar

Joined: Mar 21 2016
Location: Maryland
Status: Offline
Points: 587
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Charles Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Aug 01 2021 at 4:10pm
This the first time I have herd the use of hickory for M1 carbine stocks
Charles
Co B 1st Batl.115 Inf. Reg.
29th. Divi.
4.2 Heavy Mortar Co Retired
Life member NRA

Back to Top
Jond41403 View Drop Down
On Point
On Point


Joined: Feb 21 2021
Location: East Tennessee
Status: Offline
Points: 214
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jond41403 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Aug 01 2021 at 4:14pm
Originally posted by Charles Charles wrote:

This the first time I have herd the use of hickory for M1 carbine stocks
me too!
Back to Top
Matt_X View Drop Down
Hard Corps
Hard Corps
Avatar

Joined: Nov 10 2020
Location: Phila, Penn
Status: Offline
Points: 766
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote Matt_X Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Aug 01 2021 at 5:28pm
This may be an example of a museum that didn't have someone look over the exhibit text, and the writer made some assumptions...
I've seen it happen in museums that had a historian and curators that were very familiar with the subject.
Back to Top
Jond41403 View Drop Down
On Point
On Point


Joined: Feb 21 2021
Location: East Tennessee
Status: Offline
Points: 214
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jond41403 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Aug 01 2021 at 7:14pm
Originally posted by Matt_X Matt_X wrote:

This may be an example of a museum that didn't have someone look over the exhibit text, and the writer made some assumptions...
I've seen it happen in museums that had a historian and curators that were very familiar with the subject.
I'm with you on that, the article said 1.5 million stocks made so you know if they were made from hickory, more than a few would show up here and there and I have seen or heard of none. They probably used the exact same wood everybody else used during their time frames
Back to Top
New2brass View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar
Dan Pinto, Photo Editor

Joined: Nov 29 2015
Location: CT
Status: Offline
Points: 4627
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote New2brass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Aug 01 2021 at 8:55pm
Originally posted by Charles Charles wrote:

This the first time I have herd the use of hickory for M1 carbine stocks


read the note at the end of the article.

Originally posted by Matt_X Matt_X wrote:

This may be an example of a museum that didn't have someone look over the exhibit text, and the writer made some assumptions...
I've seen it happen in museums that had a historian and curators that were very familiar with the subject.


Exactly

Originally posted by Jond41403 Jond41403 wrote:

the article said 1.5 million stocks made so you know if they were made from hickory, more than a few would show up here and there and I have seen or heard of none. They probably used the exact same wood everybody else used during their time frames


Yep, Walnut was the spec. But eventually ordnance accepted some birch and cherry, which had issues with scrap rates.
I am not ruling out hickory, but it is highly unlikely.

1.5 million stocks would have been about more than a 1/4th of all stocks made by everyone including spares.

The person that put the display together had two more mistake that I noticed.

In all a great display and brings visitors attention to the wartime effort.

They received the coveted E award for sporting good supplied to the Army and Navy. Unclear if the stocks were also part of it.

H&B has continued to send sports equipment to the troops, so kudos to them!

Amazing how the stock has not darkened.
Back to Top
painter777 View Drop Down
Hard Corps
Hard Corps
Avatar

Joined: Feb 18 2016
Location: Central MI
Status: Offline
Points: 1708
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote painter777 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Aug 02 2021 at 11:33am
In 1980 or 1981 We painted a new summer home for John Hillerich III near East Lansing, MI on Applegate Drive in a high end neighborhood called 'White Hills'.
He along with my 2 Uncles were all Kentuckians, so they got along very well.
He had a impressive collection of their Golf Clubs. I finished the custom made display room built just for the clubs. Fun loving practical joker and a pleasure to know and be around. He retired I believe in early 2000. We called him Jack. His Wife had family ties here in Michigan. They lived between the regional president of Coca Cola and the president of Lansing, MI based Motor Wheel Corp.
Jack had a World Class collection of Autographed baseball bats.... 100's of them. His family room was full of early family members pictured with baseball stars like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron .. you name them, they were there. He was proud of their immigration roots and long tight family run business.

FWIW,
Ch-P777
Living Free because of those that serve.....
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply

Quick Reply
Name:

Message:
   NoFollow is applied to all links from this forum
 Enable BBcodes
Security Code:
Code Image - Please contact webmaster if you have problems seeing this image code  Refresh Refresh Image
Powered by Web Wiz CAPTCHA version 4.04 wwf
Copyright ©2005-2013 Web Wiz
Please enter the Security Code exactly as shown in image format.
Cookies must be enabled on your web browser.

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.01
Copyright ©2001-2018 Web Wiz Ltd.

This page was generated in 0.250 seconds.