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This is a Vega Model F6 table top cream separator. It was made in Eskilstuna, Sweden but was sold by the T. Eaton Company of Canada. Eaton's was a catalog sales firm similar to Sears or Wards in the United States. Most bench top cream separators have the bowl right over the float and spouts. The milk leaves the bowl through a valve in the bottom of the bowl. This model Vega cream separator is similar to larger, floor model cream separators in that the bowl is offset and the milk leaves the bows through a valve in the side of the bowl.
Notice the bell in the center of the gear. This allowed the user to tell when the cream separator was being cranked at the right speed, usually 60 revolutions per minute. This speed was very important for the cream separator to operate at peak efficiency. In 1913 Stewart-Warner Speedometer Corporation sold a speed indicator for cream separators at the price of 10 dollars. It had a gauge that told exactly how fast the cream separator was being cranked and could be fitted to any brand of cream separator. They cited a Purdue Experiment Station test that showed a farmer could loose $2.25 for each cow every month in lost cream due to operating their cream separator at the wrong speed. Stewart-Warner speedometers were used on the original Ford Model T's and their gauges still are sold today.
The Baker & Hamilton Company of San Francisco imported Vega cream separators into the United States and sold them in California. They put a decal with their name in the center of the gear cover. 
The picture above shows a New American Separator made by the American Separator Company of Bainbridge, New York. This was one of the early cream separator companies, having been formed in 1894. The design for this model was patented on October 15, 1929 by Thomas Collins Jr. He was an employee of American Separator Company and assigned the patent to the company. This model cream separator must have been sold prior to the patent date however because the American Separator Company featured it in advertisements in a February 1928 Hoard's Dairyman and the March 1928 Successful Farming and Country Gentleman magazines. They offered a 30 day trial, free freight, and one year to pay. The 550 lb model was offered at $5.30 per month. They were offered in seven sizes from 125 pounds/hour to 850 pounds/hour. This one is a larger size but we can find no model number or capacity on the machine. One feature they advertised was that the height of the cream tray was adjustable to fit different size cream cans. The supply can was also made to swing out of the way so the spouts and discs could be removed for cleaning without having to remove the supply can. 
 This is a DeLaval New World Standard Series Number 14 floor model cream separator. It was rated at 550 pounds of milk per hour. This would have been enough capacity to separate the milk from up to 25 cows in an hour's time. DeLaval was the most popular of the centrifugal cream separators. The company originated in Sweden in 1883 and started in the US in 1885. Gustaf DeLaval is credited with inventing the first continuously operating cream separator for which he received a U. S. patent on October 4, 1881. Prior to that he had patented his cream separator in England (1878), France (1879), Belgium (1879) and Italy (1879). Many DeLaval cream separators will list an earlier September 25, 1877 patent on the patent plate. This was a patent obtained by the DeLaval Separator Company that was issued to two German inventors for a centrifugal machine for creaming milk. However the separator in that patent was not continuous. It used centrifugal force to separate the cream from the milk but it had to be stopped to remove the cream. The advantage of Gustaf DeLaval's invention was that the milk did not have to be separated in batches but rather the milk could be continuously separated without stopping. By 1909 there were one million DeLaval cream separators in use, by 1922 there were 2.5 million and the number had jumped to four million by 1928. This particular separator has a 1937 manufacture date stamped on the base of the disc holder and in the frame of the separator.
DeLaval would have been considered the "Cadillac" of cream separators. They were the first and most common but also the most expensive. In the large creamery sizes they pretty much had a monopoly but with farm size machines the competition was fierce. In the popular press DeLaval was constantly battling competitors. On of the fiercest ad wars was with The Sharples Company, which made tubular separators. Tubular separators were easier to clean due to their design (but may not have separated the cream as close) and the supply tank was lower and easier to fill since they fed from the bottom. One mistake many dairymen made was that since cone style separators like the DeLaval were so hard to clean they often skipped cleanings. This was a serious problem as far as cream and butter quality and The Sharples Company exploited this in their advertisements. Their advertisements were often very mean spirited and negative towards DeLaval. DeLaval fought back in print but their ads tended to be more restrained and professional. DeLaval also faced stiff competition from the mail order houses like Sears, Roebuck and Company and Montgomery Wards. Many dairymen were enticed by the very low prices of these mail order separators. In 1906 DeLaval suggested this contraption for those dairymen that bought a cheaper cream separator and regretted it (picture).
Click here to view a copy of the instruction manual for this DeLaval cream separator. (3.9 MB pdf file)
DeLaval also made bench model cream separators. Pictured above is a DeLaval Junior cream separator. The one pictured here was manufactured in 1950. It is a size 2 which was rated at 225 pounds per hour. The number 2 had the supply can directly over the bowl. The Junior also came in a size 3, 4 or 5 with ratings up to 500 pounds per hour. The larger sizes had an offset supply can. Click here for a picture of Junior size 4 with an offset supply can. It has a 1938 serial number stamped in the casting. This model was rated at 400 pounds per hour. A tall stand could be purchased to convert them into a floor model and they could be ordered with an electric motor instead of the crank. 
The cream separator show above is a Sharples Tubular A. It was manufactured by The Sharples Separator Company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. We have seen advertisements for this separator as early as 1910. It was offered in 6 sizes from 225 to 900 pounds per hour. The separator pictured here is one of the larger sizes. The tubular style separator did not use discs or cones like the DeLaval cream separators. The long length of the tube and the high speed of the bowl is what allowed the tubular design to separate the cream without cones or discs. The tubular separator reached bowl speeds of up to 16,000 rpm where as a disc type cream separator would be closer to 10,000 rpm. It was still very easy to crank though because the bowl was so light and had a small diameter.
It was a much simpler system. Its biggest advantage was that it had fewer parts and was much easier to clean. They often advertised their separators as sit down units because they were so easy to crank. The Sharples Separator Company often targeted the housewife in their advertisements since it was she who often got stuck with separating the milk and the chore of cleaning the cream separator. Notice that the tube feeding the milk from the supply tank into the separator enters at the bottom. This allowed the supply tank to be much lower on a tubular separator and made it easier to pour the milk cans into the separator.
The Sharples Separator Company was founded by Philip M. Sharples, known as P. M. Sharples. Initially the company went by his name, P. M. Sharples. Between 1883 and 1888 he had a business relationship manufacturing and selling DeLaval cream separators. After a while this relationship soured and the two parties ended up battling each other in court. At that time P. M. Sharples started to manufacture and sell cream separators of his own design. Philip and his brother David were granted numerous patents as early as 1889 for cream separator designs. An 1893 advertisement showed the company was selling the Sharples Russian Separator and the Sharples Belt Separator. An 1895 ad featured the Little Giant Cream Separator. The name of the company had also changed at this time to The Sharples Company which would later become The Sharples Separator Company.
The patent however that was the basis for the tubular cream separator was granted to Herbert McCornack of West Chester, Pennsylvania on June 8, 1897. His patent showed improvements on some conventional disc type separator bowls but most importantly it also introduced the tubular separator bowl. The tubular bowl consisted of a long tube with no discs. It's simplicity and lack of complicated parts was the basis for the Sharples' cream separators from that time on. McCornack assigned his patent to P. M. Sharples. Herbert McCornack would later invent the popular Surge Bucket milker (click here to go to that page). David Sharples, Philip's brother, was granted patents on November 5, 1901, April 25, 1905 and two patents on January 29, 1907 that lead to the Tubular A cream separator pictured above.
P.M. Sharples never forgot his battles with the DeLaval Separator Company. His advertisements were very aggressive towards his former business partner and the two companies often traded jabs in the dairy publications of the time. The Sharples Company also often touted its large deliveries of cream separators. They often boasted of large trains, with rail cars loaded with cream separators, called the Sharples Specials. If the Sharples Separator Company was as big a competitor to the DeLaval Separator Company as their advertisements suggested one wonders why there are so many DeLaval cream separators around today and so few Sharples cream separators.
Thanks Tom for letting us show off your separator. 
 This is a Melotte S8 floor model cream separator. It likely was made in the late 1930's to the early 1940's. The Melotte was made in Belgium and imported by Babson Brothers of Chicago, Illinois. This was the same company that sold the Surge milker. It was unique in that the separating cones were suspended from above, by a single bearing, rather than below. They advertised that the bowl was self-balancing and could never go out of balance. This model was rated at 740 pounds (325 liters) of milk per hour. This cream separator also has a bell on the center of the handle to aid in judging the correct speed to crank. Early Melotte cream separators had the supply tank mounted very high. Around 1928 Melotte came out with low models that had the tank mounted much lower and made it easier to pour in the milk.
There was a great amount of competition between the numerous cream separator manufacturers. In order to attract business Melotte offered a variety of incentives. One 1928 advertisement offered a 30 day free trial, free return shipping if unsatisfied, up to a year to pay, up to four months with no payment, payments as low as $7.50 per month and a 15 year guarantee.
Click here to go to the page with the Surge milker also sold by Babson Brothers Company. |
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