Here he also succeeded and produced a lathe that would copy precisely and rapidly any pattern.

It is from this invention that the name of Blanchard is best known.

The original machine is preserved in the United States Armory at Springfield, to which Blanchard was attached for many years, and where scores of the descendants of his copying lathe may be seen in action today.
Turning gunstocks was, of course, only one of the many uses of Blanchard's copying lathe.

Its chief use, in fact, was in the production of wooden lasts for the shoemakers of New England, but it was applied to many branches of wood manufacture, and later on the same principle was applied to the shaping of metal.
Blanchard was a man of many ideas.

He built a steam vehicle for ordinary roads and was an early advocate of railroads; he built steamboats to ply upon the Connecticut and incidentally produced in connection with these his most profitable invention, a machine to bend ship's timbers without splintering them.