"Wayne" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 22:46:21 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

Very interesting tidbit, I wasn't aware.
The name then used to be dependent on where and how
the center was used.

How then was each of the centers called when you went to buy one?

Ball-bearing dead center, plain center (hardened for dead; soft for live),
half-point center, rotating- versus plain cup center, etc.

I wonder if that is why the name changed, to be position
independent.

I don't know. Tracking down how words evolve can be tricky business.
Something like "billet wheels," though, is a lot easier. That was a case of
the admen 'got hold of a word that could really sell, by association with
something else.

If there was some profit in finding out, I think you'd find it in the
archives of _American Machinist_ from, say, the 1930s through the 1960s.
They were the gold standard for lots of words used in our business,
including the spelling of "gage" versus "gauge."

--
Ed Huntress