Sears Roebuck & Co. Masonry Tools

Throughout the 20th century, Sears Roebuck & Co. was the largest mail order company and probably the most recognizable retailer in the United States. Tools that Sears sold have benefited from that popularity. Sears contracted with manufacturers to make most items with Sears brand names, and this private label manufacturing continues today. Unfortunately for tool collectors and historians, Sears has not revealed who those makers were. A considerable amount of time and effort has been spent by those collectors and historians to determine who the manufacturers were, and this research is ongoing at websites like Alloy Artifacts.

Sears Roebuck was founded by Richard W. Sears (1863-1914) in 1886 in Minneapolis, MN, and moved to Chicago IL in 1887, where Alvah C. Roebuck joined the business. Initially they sold watches and jewelry by mail, and quickly expanded to include many other household items. In 1893 the business became Sears, Roebuck and Co. By 1895 the firm was producing a 532-page catalog with "shoes, women's garments and millinery, wagons, fishing tackle, stoves, furniture, china, musical instruments, saddles, firearms, buggies, bicycles, baby carriages and glassware, in addition to watches and jewelry” (source of quote). Chicago clothing manufacturer Julius Rosenwald bought into the company in 1895, becoming vice president, and then Roebuck resigned because of poor health. Growing rapidly, the firm moved to a new 6-story building in 1896, and continued to build and lease other buildings in Chicago. In 1905 construction started on a 41-acre plant and office building on Chicago's West Side. When it opened in 1906, the 9 story, 3 million square foot mail order plant was the largest business building in the world.

Sears tool brands include Fulton Tool Company, Craftsman, Dunlap, and Sears. Their masonry tools sold in the past included a brick trowel, pointing trowel, finishing trowel, concrete edger, concrete groover, brick hammer, and other common masonry tools. Here are the pages with masonry tools from 6 Sears catalogs from 1957 to 1972, with the cover pages to identify the year.  

Sears did not register Fulton Tool Company as a trademark, but no single maker has been found for the wide variety of tools that Sears sold with the Fulton name. Fulton tools began appearing in 1908 catalogs, and included hand saws, crosscut saws, axes, planes, chisels, hammers, pliers, and more. The only references I have found for Fulton as a tool maker are an Ohio manufacturer of mining tools and a file and rasp maker in Brooklyn, NY.

The famous Sears Craftsman brand dates to the 1927 registration of the Craftsman trademark, and a history of the brand is on the Sears Archive at Craftsman History. Craftsman masonry tools include a forged brick trowel, brick hammer, brick jointer, and brick chisel.

Craftsman 6553 11 inch brick trowel

The Dunlap brand was primarily a line of economy tools that sold from 1938 to at least 1960. It may have been named after Tom Dunlap, the manager of the Sears hardware division from the 1930s through the 1950s. Sears filed a trademark application for Dunlap in 1938 and the trademark was issued in 1939. Dunlap tools first appeared in the in the 1938-1939 Fall and Winter Sears catalogs. The Dunlap name replaced some tools that had previously sold as Fulton or Merit (wrenches). Dunlap masonry tools sold on eBay and elsewhere include a variety of masonry tools.

Dunlap cast iron edger & groover

A Look Inside a Tool Factory in 1911

The James Swan Company's 1911 catalog includes 6 pictures of their factory interiors showing the steps in making their tools. While Swan made wood chisels and auger bits, not masonry tools, the processes and equipment involved is very similar to those of manufacturers covered on this website. The 6 pictures and one of the exteriors of their 2 facilities is here. The catalog was scanned by Rose Antique Tools and is used with permission.

Two-page 1906 Pennsylvania state report on forged tools employment 

Video tour of Trow & Holden's antique machinery in 2008 (YouTube)

Bradley power hammer in Sweden (YouTube)

Wagner of Steckborn, Switzerland

Wagner was a maker of foundry molding tools in Steckborn, Switzerland. Steckborn is on the Untersee of Lake Constance (Konstanz), part of the Rhine River, directly across from Germany. Wagner's tools are steel and brass, and appear to be high quality. Their tools are stamped with a smith's mark, "WAGNER", and a model number. Some also include "STECKBORN" or "Made in W. Germany". My research has not found any information about the company's history. There is a Wagner Metallgiesserei AG in Thurgau (Steckborn's canton), but it was formed in the late 20th century.

Steckborn Wikipedia (EN); Steckborn Wikipedia (DE).

Thank you to reader Tom for his 2 pictures.

Wagner No. 109

Wagner No. 109

Wagner No. 120 A, made in Western Germany

Molders at work in a German foundry

Removing Concrete and Mortar With Sugar-Based Products

Cleaning old concrete and mortar from tools by scraping or with acid is difficult and can result in damage to the tools. Recently I learned there are several cleaning products containing cane sugar which are made to dissolve or soften concrete and mortar which have set. Here are links to 6 products available in the USA and one each in the UK and Australia. There are probably more products available, and if I learn how to mix your own concrete dissolver I will post it here.

Sakrete Concrete Mortar Dissolver cleaned the lettering

Here are some suggestions after trying the Sakrete product:

The surface should be dry; water, tar, oils, or wax will keep the remover from working.

Expect the dissolver to work slowly and unevenly, depending on the hardness of the material.
If the dissolver is able to work, a white crust will form as the concrete or mortar dissolves.
Brush or scrape off material loosened by the dissolver before adding more dissolver.
Use tools like a brass brush and wooden or plastic scraper.
The dissolver evaporates slowly, so spot applications are effective if you let them work.
It does not eat steel, brass, or bronze, and does not appear to cause rust while it's working.
Be patient, this may take days on some tools.

Sakrete Concrete Mortar Dissolver

US products:
Chisel concrete remover
Consolver Concrete Remover
Five Star® EZ-Cure® Concrete Remover
Mean Klean Concrete & Mortar Dissolver
RoMix Back-Set concrete remover; manufacturer's video
Sakrete Concrete Mortar Dissolver

United Kingdom:
SpeedyClean Concrete Dissolver

Australia:
CSS Crete-Off Concrete Dissolver

Sugar also acts as a concrete retarder, and was used on an accidental spill in London Underground’s Victoria Line, enabling the mess to be shoveled up before it set.
Article in the UK Telegraph on how sugar acts as a concrete retarder.

Kramer Brothers brass groover, cleaned with Sakrete Dissolver

History of United Engineering and Malleable, Victoria, Australia

United Engineering and Malleable manufactured cement tools, builder's hardware, and metal components in Footscray, which is 5 km west of Melbourne. They were established about 1887 and were operating as late as 1947. The original location was on Elizabeth St., and in 1944 the foundry was on Gordon St. For National Library of  Australia search results on hardware company John Danks & Son Pty., Ltd., who carried UEM's products, click here.

Thank you to Chris from Australia for photographs of his tools and links about this company.

UEM No. 119 corrugating tool

UEM 116A external angle

UEM 196 step noser (altered)

From The Age, Melbourne, Victoria, 2 May 1935:

United Engineering & Malleable's products, 1940s

....In the foundries of the United Engineering and Malleable Co. at Footscray, metal products previously imported from America and England...are being turned out....

Carried on for 48 years, the industry was originally established by Shiner and Co., in Elizabeth-street. All that time the works have specialised in mixed medium-weight job work and machinery repetition work in agricultural machinery and general engineering requirements. The process illustrated on this page is used in connection with the filling of moulds, prepared by skilled tradesmen, in the malleable iron foundry. Taken from the mixing ladle the metal is agitated, then poured into small hand ladles, each moulder carrying his ladle and pouring the metal into his own moulds. The rod shown in the hands of the tapper is 8 or 9 feet long, on the end of which is a shaped daub of clay. This is forced into the orifice, a small opening at the bottom of the cupola, for sufficient time to enable the congregation of another 5 or 6 cwt. of metal to be treated for, say, 30 minutes. As the process takes place sparks fly about in a thrilling pyrotechnic display.

"Malleable" is a term to define the making of metal ductile so as to stand up to shocks and blows, particularly in the case of articles which are too expensive to forge. Under strict scientific control, this manufacture is not completed until the moulded articles have been treated for many days in the annealing ovens, which are maintained day and night, Saturdays and Sundays, at certain temperatures. Metal parts used in the railway and electricity undertakings call for constant analysis, and pyrometer control in this way. The manufacture of detachable link sprocket chain and attachments, used in conveyors, elevators and agricultural machinery, has replaced heavy importations of this product. In the industry also is found a complete plant for the output of builders' hardware, including metal stamping, manufacturing and assembling and electroplating of different finishes, and the packing and distribution. The company reports splendid support of the Australian-made products.

Link to 1935 photograph of the moulding process.