A Brief History of Modern Hydraulics
Modern Hydraulics, Incorporated of West Chicago, Illinois, USA was formed in
1958 with four house movers and Robin Renshaw as stockholders.
Mr. Renshaw was the only owner/employee of the new corporation.
The
first and only initial product was a 9-jack unified house jacking machine that
was sold with 13 crib jacks.
This machine had to be mounted on a 1-1/2 ton truck bed, and the truck
had to have a PTO to mount and drive the hydraulic pump.
The price was $10,000, plus the cost of the truck.
This package was almost impossible for the average house mover to afford,
and had the disadvantage of permanently tying up a truck.
With
sales practically non-existent, Mr. Renshaw desperately researched what the
average house mover needed and came up with two ideas that saved the company.
One was a smaller, self-contained unified jacking system that could fit
into the bed of a common pickup truck and that was equipped with 6 jacks and
able to raise 90 tons. The
second idea was a small portable power pack to manually control four outlets
that when used with crib jacks had 60 tons of jacking capacity.
The
new unified jacking system mechanism was totally redesigned.
The original true displacement cylinder design was changed to a more
efficient and compact injection cylinder layout.
A 9 horsepower gasoline engine provided the power and the entire machine
fit easily into the bed of a standard pickup truck.
At the same time the small portable power pack was developed.
It had a 3 horsepower engine mounted compactly above the tank with the
pump sealed in the tank.
These
affordable new products finally made hydraulic jacking available to the average
house mover.
Along
with the jacking products a line of rubber-tired house moving dollies were
developed and manufactured so that a complete line of house jacking and moving
equipment could be sold.
It
soon became apparent that matching excellent products with potential customers
was not going to be easy. Until
this time hydraulic jacks had a very poor reputation and were notorious for
leaking oil and a very short life span.
The new products from the struggling company would have to prove
themselves. It was a
very frustrating time for the fledgling Modern Hydraulics, to be so full of
ideas and so short of money.
At
the same time partners in the business felt that it would not ultimately be
successful and at various times decided to divest themselves of ownership of the
company leaving Mr. Renshaw as the sole owner and seriously in debt.
Knowing that the new line of equipment would eventually prove themselves
in speed, safety of usage, and in economy of operation, but also needing to
survive, the company proceeded to develop other types of hydraulic equipment.
Among
those products were hydraulic toe jacks, hydraulic gantries, machines to prepare
the inside and outside of large diameter pipelines for joining, hydraulic
machines for assembling railroad tanks cars, hydraulic presses for the plastics
industry, even larger rubber tired dollies, and sophisticated automatic unified
jacking systems for the automotive industry.
Without this other work Modern Hydraulics would not exist today.
Slowly the house jacking machines started to be accepted by movers and sales began to improve. Over 500 of the six-jack unified units were sold along with great numbers of power packs, larger unifiedTM jacking machines, dollies and other equipment.
The
range of unified jacking systems was expanded to include a new self-contained
9-jack system, along with 12-jack, 19-jack, and 24-jack models, eventually
culminating in the largest unified jacking system ever built, a 120 jack model.
As the sale of house jacking equipment improved Modern Hydraulics was
able to be less dependent on sales of the other equipment for survival.
In August of 1985 Robin’s son Lance re-joined Modern Hydraulics and the company entered a new era of vitality. On December 31st of 2005 Modern Hydraulics, Inc. was dissolved, Robin retired, and Lance started Modern Hydraulics/Nevada LLC.
Today
Modern Hydraulics/Nevada LLC is offering new products and new approaches for the
structural moving industry. We invite you to view our latest unified
jacking systems and other products.
Robin would like to thank all of his friends in the structural moving industry who have given him advice and helpful comments over the 47 years of his involvement in it, and the encouragement to keep going when times were tough. He has successfully entered retirement.