Taylor Devices, Inc.
Taylor Devices - 90 Taylor Drive - Established in 1952
Established on Evans Street by Paul Taylor. Incorporated in 1955. Business moved to 188 Main Street in 1955. Now on Tonawanda Island. Paul Taylor passed away in 2004.
 |
Paul Taylor - Founder of Taylor Device, Inc., courtesy of Doug Taylor. |
DESIGN EVOLUTION OF THE TAYLOR DEVICES SHOCK ABSORBER, DAMPER, AND LIQUID SPRING
During his ten years of experience as an Aeronautical Engineer for Beech Aircraft and Curtiss-Wright, our founder, Mr. Paul H. Taylor, became aware of the work of Sir George Dowty in the field of fluid compressibility, and of similar work by Amagot, Constaninesco, and Bridgeman.
These early studies of compressibility phenomena led to the development of various compressible material devices during Mr. Taylor's tenure as Vice President, Research, of the Wales-Strippit Corporation, a machine tool manufacturer. This included a mass produced liquid spring. Over 20,000 of these were built and sold for commercial uses for dies, aircraft, ordnance, etc., during the early 1950's.
In 1955, Mr. Taylor formed Taylor Devices, Inc. for the purpose of developing an original aircraft liquid spring landing gear design which combined a spring and shock absorber into a single package. Variations of this basic product provided a pure shock absorber, a double acting damper, and a pure liquid spring.
Special machines were developed to automate the production of ultra-finished bores having a half millionth of an inch surface finish (.5 micro inch), essential to the proper performance of these early, super-precision, hydraulic components.
In 1962, Mr. Taylor filed for patents on what is now the Teflon®* sealed, rod type, liquid spring-damper, which was the first new type of liquid spring design in over 30 years. By 1972, Taylor Devices had manufactured over 500,000 liquid springs and liquid spring dampers utilizing the Teflon® seal design. This seal has been improved upon, with the associated improvement patents, to the point that millions of cycles of totally leak-free operation can be achieved without the need of maintenance or seal replacement.
In addition to Teflon®, other structural plastics are often used in manufacturing seals to meet specific customer requirements such as nuclear radiation resistance, high vacuum, or operation in environments containing caustic substances.
As a parallel program, an improved low pressure seal design was also produced, proving the basis for standard commercial shock absorber and damper designs where conventional hydraulic seals had proven to be inadequate due to leakage.
In the 1970's, patents were issued on the Taylor Devices' Fluidic Damping System, the first major technical improvement in shock absorber design since 1927.
By 1990, production of Taylor Shock Absorbers and Liquid Springs was well over 2.5 million units. More than 750,000 units were used as automobile bumper shock absorbers in the 1973-1976 model years. To date, over 90 U.S. Patents in the field of compressible fluid technology have been issued to members of the firm. The superior design qualities and reliable operation of Taylor Liquid Springs, Liquid Spring Shocks and Shock Absorbers are well known throughout the world.
Taylor Devices' long history as a supplier of critical components to the United States Government spans four decades.
For more information on Mr. Doug Taylor, please click HERE. You can also find another of his letters in our Tonawanda Island section HERE.