115) Trinity Ball Throwing Machine
As Jonny had his workshop in Pinetown he met some men that he had been friendly with at school or when he was doing his apprenticeship many years before. There were three of them who had their own businesses in Pinetown. One was Jimmy Gilcrest and there was also Graham Chatterton and Ivor Nielson. Jonny would call on them now and again or bump into them during his working day. One day while he was at work in his workshop another old friend came in. He was Ian Braid, he had called to see Jimmy Gilcrest and was told were Jonny was working so he called round to see him. Ian had always been called ‘Doc’ when they had all been young together so Doc he remained. Doc is an electrician and had an idea that he wanted to develop and market. As an electrician he could manage the electrical side of his idea but he needed someone to develop the mechanical side. He asked Jonny if he would be interested in working with him on the project. The invention was a ball-throwing machine and it was to train cricketers and base ball players. It was to be fully automatic so that the player would be able to train all on his own. Jonny thought it was a good idea and so began a long process of development.
Doc and Jonny did a lot of the work on their machine but they also got advise and help from others. They were told that if they took their idea to the engineering department of the university they could get help with the development. The university was always looking for projects for their students to work on as part of their course. If the project was not required by a set time and the students could take their time in the development there was no charge. It was arranged that the students would go to Jonny’s workshop to see the prototype machine and to discuss with Jonny and Doc what work they wanted done on the machine and to decide if they would be prepared to take it on. Jonny told them the speed that the ball would come out of the machine but they did not seem to believe him. He loaded the balls into the machine and fired them. The young men were pretty amazed when they smashed through an internal door, broke a window and had to be retrieved from the factory next door. After that they were very keen to do the development work on the machine. One of the things they were supposed to be developing was a mechanical hopper to hold the balls so that they did not have to be hand fed into the machine one at the time. They worked on the machine for quite a long time but the hopper that they came up with was not a success as the balls would get struck and not drop down into the machine. Jonny eventually designed a feeder shoot worked well giving one ball at a time, every time.
There always seemed to be a new problem to be solved though. One thing would lead to another and having put so much work into it they felt that they had to see it through to the end. They hoped that it would be a great success and give them a good income. Eventually Doc got tired of it and decided to pull out, leaving Jonny to work on alone. As Jonny was still running his business he did not have as much time as he would have liked to spend on the machine but he worked hard at it, never giving up hope in it. He often says now if someone says he wants to invent something, they should just be put directly into a mental asylum, not to wait until their invention turns them crazy.
One time when Jonny had taken the machine to demonstrate it to some of the cricketers I remember that he told me that one of them had loved the machine but had not liked the colour. I thought that that was very odd, what difference could the colour make. But Jonny explained that the practice balls that the cricketers used were yellow and so they did not show up well against the cream colour of the machine and made it hard to see the ball as it left the machine. Black had been suggested as an alternative but Jonny was not keen on that so he chose British Racing Green and that solved that problem.
The machine was named “The Trinity” and a great deal of time and money was spent on it. Jonny did a lot of work and showed it to many different people. He met most of the South African cricket team in connection with the machine. People were generally very impressed with it but sometimes they would think of some other feature that they would like to see in it and some of them were very good ideas. The Coach of the South African team at that time was a man by the name of Graham Ford and Jonny demonstrated the machine for him. He was very impressed with all the features on the machine but thought that it should also be able to change the distance that the ball was pitched at, so they designed yet another feature to enable this. About this time someone warned Jonny not to listen to everybody’s suggestion as he could go on for ever adding to the machine and would eventually end up with a wonderful machine but that it would cost too much for anyone to be able to buy it. He was told just to decide which features he wanted and to stop there.
The Trinity Ball Throwing machine is certainly a very good machine. When it was first built, it was as good as if not better than most of its competitors but not having the huge sums of money needed to develop it as other manufactures did they eventually incorporated other features into their machines. We just did not have the capital to exploit it to the full. We learnt a lot from the machine though and it was “The Trinity” that helped to get us into Australia so we don’t regret it. It was just a pity that after all of Jonny’s hard work we could not get it into production and into the market.
Doc and Jonny did a lot of the work on their machine but they also got advise and help from others. They were told that if they took their idea to the engineering department of the university they could get help with the development. The university was always looking for projects for their students to work on as part of their course. If the project was not required by a set time and the students could take their time in the development there was no charge. It was arranged that the students would go to Jonny’s workshop to see the prototype machine and to discuss with Jonny and Doc what work they wanted done on the machine and to decide if they would be prepared to take it on. Jonny told them the speed that the ball would come out of the machine but they did not seem to believe him. He loaded the balls into the machine and fired them. The young men were pretty amazed when they smashed through an internal door, broke a window and had to be retrieved from the factory next door. After that they were very keen to do the development work on the machine. One of the things they were supposed to be developing was a mechanical hopper to hold the balls so that they did not have to be hand fed into the machine one at the time. They worked on the machine for quite a long time but the hopper that they came up with was not a success as the balls would get struck and not drop down into the machine. Jonny eventually designed a feeder shoot worked well giving one ball at a time, every time.
There always seemed to be a new problem to be solved though. One thing would lead to another and having put so much work into it they felt that they had to see it through to the end. They hoped that it would be a great success and give them a good income. Eventually Doc got tired of it and decided to pull out, leaving Jonny to work on alone. As Jonny was still running his business he did not have as much time as he would have liked to spend on the machine but he worked hard at it, never giving up hope in it. He often says now if someone says he wants to invent something, they should just be put directly into a mental asylum, not to wait until their invention turns them crazy.
One time when Jonny had taken the machine to demonstrate it to some of the cricketers I remember that he told me that one of them had loved the machine but had not liked the colour. I thought that that was very odd, what difference could the colour make. But Jonny explained that the practice balls that the cricketers used were yellow and so they did not show up well against the cream colour of the machine and made it hard to see the ball as it left the machine. Black had been suggested as an alternative but Jonny was not keen on that so he chose British Racing Green and that solved that problem.
The machine was named “The Trinity” and a great deal of time and money was spent on it. Jonny did a lot of work and showed it to many different people. He met most of the South African cricket team in connection with the machine. People were generally very impressed with it but sometimes they would think of some other feature that they would like to see in it and some of them were very good ideas. The Coach of the South African team at that time was a man by the name of Graham Ford and Jonny demonstrated the machine for him. He was very impressed with all the features on the machine but thought that it should also be able to change the distance that the ball was pitched at, so they designed yet another feature to enable this. About this time someone warned Jonny not to listen to everybody’s suggestion as he could go on for ever adding to the machine and would eventually end up with a wonderful machine but that it would cost too much for anyone to be able to buy it. He was told just to decide which features he wanted and to stop there.
The Trinity Ball Throwing machine is certainly a very good machine. When it was first built, it was as good as if not better than most of its competitors but not having the huge sums of money needed to develop it as other manufactures did they eventually incorporated other features into their machines. We just did not have the capital to exploit it to the full. We learnt a lot from the machine though and it was “The Trinity” that helped to get us into Australia so we don’t regret it. It was just a pity that after all of Jonny’s hard work we could not get it into production and into the market.
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