The Hardinge Lathe at Jarvik Heart
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Like many engineers, I spend a bit of time browsing the internet’s technical corners. Most people read the Sunday paper. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool mechanical engineer, so my version of that is browsing the Machinists subreddit on Reddit.
Last weekend I saw a post that immediately caught my eye.
Someone had posted photos of a beautiful Hardinge manual lathe with a distinctive set of tooling and accessories. It was in remarkable condition. What really caught my attention though was the street visible outside the shop. It looked strangely familiar.
So I asked a simple question in the comments:
“Was this on 50th and 10th?”
The original poster replied:
“Yup! It’s Dr. J’s Hardinge.”
And just like that I was transported back to my very first job as an engineer.
That lathe lived in the shop at Jarvik Heart, where I had the privilege of working early in my career. I spent many hours at that exact machine designing and machining parts for LVAD systems.
One of the most critical components of the entire pump was the jewel bearing assembly that supports the rotating impeller. These bearings are blood wetted and absolutely essential to the performance and reliability of the device.
During my time at Jarvik Heart, I personally hand polished the bearing surfaces on that Hardinge lathe. Each one required forming a precise 5 thousandths of an inch radius, which I polished by hand. Every single bearing was then checked on the optical comparator to make sure the geometry was exactly right before it could go into a production pump.
Those bearings ultimately went on to be implanted in hundreds and hundreds of patients.
For a young engineer just starting out, that level of responsibility was both exciting and humbling.
Building the Jarvik 2000
While at Jarvik Heart, another engineer and I were responsible for the production of the Jarvik 2000 LVAD.
That responsibility extended through the entire production process, including final packaging and graft attachment steps in the cleanroom. We were literally the last people to touch the pumps before they were opened by surgeons in the operating room.
During my time there we more than doubled the production rate of the device and implemented numerous improvements to both the manufacturing processes and aspects of the product design.
Many of these improvements were practical engineering changes that improved manufacturability, reliability, and throughput.
The NIH PUMPKIN Program
I also had the opportunity to work on the NIH PUMPKIN program.
The PUMPKIN trial focused on developing ventricular assist devices for the smallest pediatric patients. At Jarvik, this meant creating both infant and child sized versions of the Jarvik 2000 pump.
You can read more about the program here:
Working on these devices was a powerful reminder of the real purpose behind engineering work. When you are assembling a pump designed for an infant’s heart, the stakes become very real.
I took several photos during that time while we were assembling these pumps, and I am sharing a few of them here.
Full Circle
Seeing that Hardinge lathe again years later on Reddit was a surreal moment.
Machines like that become part of the history of the devices they help produce. They also become part of the history of the engineers who learn their craft on them.
For me, that machine will always be connected to those early days at Jarvik Heart - long hours in the shop, careful work in the cleanroom, and the realization that the parts we were making would soon be inside someone’s chest helping keep them alive.
In a future post I will share the story of how I got that job in the first place.
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