Old power tool

[JDgreen227]

Was at the local Goodwill this morning, and spotted this gently-used metal pad sander for the low, low, price of $3.99 and tax. The cord is badly frayed, and the grounding plug broken off, but the reason I purchased it was: IT WAS MADE IN MICHIGAN. The tag says:


"HI/LO Sander

Made in USA by

PENINSULA TOOL CO. INC.

Menominee, Mich.

In the Upper Pensinsula"

I have lived in Michigan for 60 years but never heard of the company before...and guess what...the darn thing STILL WORKS.

 

[300UGUY]

Never heard of them either. I did a quick google, got nothing.

 

[creekbend]

Made in U.S.A. My Father still has a large size metal fan made in the United States by General Electric. My parents bought it new sometime around the mid-50's. My Father still has it in the kitchen and it still works like a "New Penny". Made in U.S.A. when products were built to last. :thumbsup: BTW, there are good deals made while shopping at Goodwill. It looks like you found one.

 

[300UGUY]

I'm going to Goodwill tommorrow to drop off some stuff. I am kinda afraid of going there to shop - I have too much stuff now.

 

[JDgreen227]

Never heard of them either. I did a quick google, got nothing.

I did a Google after the thread was started...only hit I got was for my own thread. Went thru Menominee a hundred times while I was working for the state, never would have thought of it as a tool manufacturing site.

 

[300UGUY]

I did a Google after the thread was started...only hit I got was for my own thread. Went thru Menominee a hundred times while I was working for the state, never would have thought of it as a tool manufacturing site.

I grew up in the Tool & die biz, my dad had a shop, and we were subs for some places and subbed some stuff out to others, meaning that I was in a lot of small shops when I was young. The whole Detroit area was full of small shops. Virtually all are gone. Back in the 80's, I was visiting a small shop in Livonia. They had a whole bunch of Parker Majestic grinders. Those were considered the best surface grinders made. They had no work for them, and virtually no work for the shop. I asked why, and they told me that competitors had started using traveling wire cnc edm machines to do roll form dies. Technology had made the biz obsolete virtually overnight. The owner told me that in the space of 1 year he went from having 30 employees to zero. He was older, and didn't or couldn't invest in the new tech. Technology took some shops out, foriegn competition took a lot more. In the early 90's I visited the Ingersoll Milling Machine Co. , in Rockford Ill. At that time they were the largest machine tool company in the world, employing about 3K employees. The whole place ran 24/7/365. By 2000, they had gone bust and been bought out by a Chinese company. Now I believe Makino or Toyoda, both Japanese, might be the top dog.