Consolidated Machine Tool Corp. was created with the 1922 merger of Betts Machine Co., Colburn Machine Tool Co., Hilles & Jones Co., Modern Tool Co. and Newton Machine Tool Works. In 1928 they acquired the machine tool business of Edwin Harrington, Son & Co., Inc.

In 1943 a group of investors bought William Sellers & Co. and merged it with Consolidated.

In 1951 the business was acquired by the Farrel-Birmingham Co., and then in 1982 the former Consolidated product lines were acquired by the newly created Machine Tool Research, Inc. (MTR). That firm is still in business as a machine tool rebuilder, and they also develop and manufacture new products, such as a ship shaft lathe developed in 2012 for the US Navy to recondition propulsion shafts.

MTR support the Farrel and Consolidated Machine lines including Betts, Newton, Sellers and Colburn. They have a vast archive of parts and assembly documents. Contact their parts or sales departments through their website, mtrnet.com.

Information Sources

• According to an advertisement reproduced in the 2016 book, Rochester Made Means Quality, Consolidated Machine Tool was acquired by the Farrel-Birmingham Company in 1951. In 1982 some former employees formed the Machine Tool Research, Inc. (MTR), in Rochester, and purchased the rights to the product lines of the Farrel-Birmingham Co., including the former Consolidated Machine Tool companies.
• The Rochester factory operated as a division of Farrel until 1983, when the product line was sold to the Conlon Corporation.
• Vitiello, Domenic. Engineering Philadelphia. New York: Cornell University Press, 2013.
  
• Thanks to Jason Gassman of MTR for providing information on their current activities.