History Of Lenox Instrument Company
1950 - 1960

Prosperity continued into the 1950's as Lenox developed a full-scale optical fabrication shop for the manufacture of lenses and prisms and in the year of

Advertisement for Lenox Gasmain scope, 1954.		Fabrication of borescope mirrors, 1952.

1950 Lenox produced the first high temperature periscope for viewing inside furnaces and power boilers.

Visit the photo gallery of the late 1940's & 1950s

Prior to the excavation of an Egyptian crypt, in 1954, Lenox lent an extendable borescope to the National Geographic Society to inspect the contents of a Pharaoh's crypt, which was alongside a pyramid. The instrument was inserted through a small hole in the wall of the crypt and photos were taken through the scope. Visible were the timbers of a boat that had been stashed in the crypt a few thousand years ago. The pharaohs' craft was removed from the crypt and reconstructed and eventually placed in a Museum next to the pyramid. The Lenox extendable scope allowed this crypt and others to be observed prior to excavation without disturbance.

Dr. George S. Crampton.		John W. Lang Sr.

The following year, 1955, Lenox was the first to developed a periscope for use on the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus to monitor the reactor's controls in the radiation area.

Lenox made a major postwar contribution to national defense, when in 1958 the entire B-47 bomber fleet was grounded because of metal-fatigue cracks resulting from low-level simulated bombing missions. Lenox worked around the clock for four months to produce enough borescopes to inspect the crippled aircraft. The procedure was part of "Project Milkbottle" which, reinforce the milk-bottle-shaped pin that was a primary connection between the fuselage and wing.

Operation Milk Bottle scope for inspecting wing pins of B-47's, U.S. Air Force, 1958		Inspecting the wing pin of a grounded B-47 bomber, circa 1958.

1959 saw Lenox develop a system of inspecting helicopter blades automatically. This need arose because a crack internally in a helicopter blade could be fatal to the aircraft while in flight. The borescope, supported by a long bench, could inspect the blades while the operator viewed the results on a TV screen. Both Boeing-Vertol and Sikorsky Aircraft used this system extensively during the Vietnam conflict. Helicopter manufacturers continue to use borescopes for such critical safety inspections.

Helicopter blade inspection, Boeing Vertol, 1966.		Helicopter blade inspection, Boeing Vertol, 1966.		Helicopter blade inspection, Boeing Vertol, 1966.		Automatic helicopter blade inspection, 1964.

In that same year Lenox developed the first radiation resistant periscope for monitoring fuel rods at nuclear plants worldwide.

Aero-jet General nuclear wall periscope, 1965.		Triton periscope, Brookhaven National Labs, 1963.		Metallurgy microscope, E.I. Dupont Co., Savannah River, 1957.

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