Armstrong/Matco/Allen/Danaher/Apex/Fortive is a whole friggin' soap-opera of who is getting supplied by who, and who is going to be the new supplier next week, and who is buying which division from which parent company. Honestly, Matco is like the pretty-but-damaged junior-high girl that gets passed from one boy to the next, endlessly, screwed by everyone and never feels loved or secure.woody b wrote: ↑Sun Jun 16, 2019 4:12 pmI wasn't aware of the info Makin chips posted, but I can add a little. Armstrong is the same, or at least was the same a Matco tools. Armstrong was the industrial line, Matco the mechanic line. I love Matco wrenches and screwdrivers. I don't care for their sockets. Our local Matco man (actually a revolving door of Matco men) has always been hit and miss. I replaced a couple wrenches I'd lost with Armstrong wrenches I ordered from McMaster Carr. They were identical except for the name. (even had the same number on them). Some of their hand tools (Danaher tools, Matco, Armstrong, Craftsman Pro) were made in Bessemer City NC. (15 miles from here) I had a friend who worked at that plant, but she retired in 2015. I don't know if that plant is still open, or if they still make stuff for Danaher.makin chips wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2019 10:07 pm They were made in South Carolina by Apex Tools until March 31, 2017 when they closed the plant and layed everyone off. They made tools for Craftsman Pro and currently Apex Tools, who owns Armstrong, makes Gear Wrench.
Armstrong tools were industrial tools for aerospace, military, and government use mainly. Most of this info is available at Wikipedia. They were owned by Danaher until Apex bought them and then closed them down.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Tools
There was a time that Armstrong/Matco/Danaher were all in bed together along with Allen, the Mastercraft line by Menards, and thirty other companies some of which you may have heard of, and some that are a total unknown. The Danaher parent company made ratchets that were sold by Armstrong with one handle design, Craftsman with another handle design, Matco with yet another handle design, Menards/Mastercraft with a different handle, Allen with a different handle, all forged in the same factory...and they all may have used the same ratchet mechanism, which, depending on the ratchet model, was introduced by EASCO in about 1965. There was a worldwide-shortage of Matco ratchets when the Danaher/Apex factory went down due to...flooding, I think. Took months for Matco to design a new ratchet mechanism and find someone to produce it. Over a year before they got caught-up with warranty replacements. Yeah, some guys with broken Matco ratchets sent them back to the factory and waited over a year for a replacement! Danaher got sold to Apex, Apex closed up Allen and Armstrong and God-only-knows which other brands including KOBALT and Menards/Mastercraft, because some Suit decided that he could save money by consolidating four tool factories into one (conveniently located in a Non-Union, Right-to-work-for-peanuts, economically-distressed state) and then that one factory had set-up problems then got flooded-out. Wasn't long thereafter that Armstrong and Allen got the doors locked, Menards and Lowe's went to Asia for what had been USA-made tools, and somebody--Danaher or Apex--sold-off Matco in the melee.
I have some elderly (1987*-ish) MATCO sockets and a 10mm combo wrench. The wrenches were made by the company that also made Bonney (Cooper Tools). Against all odds, I like the "Bonney" design. Comfortable, and obviously durable since I've been using it since Fido was a pup. Later, I guess, the wrenches were made by Wright, including Wright making long-pattern combo wrenches for Matco that they did not have an equivalent long-pattern in the Wright-branded line. And I don't know who made the sockets, but I suspect the company that made Bonney (but without any actual evidence to prove it.) Again, which supplier in which time-frame is beyond what I can remember.
*In the mid-80's, you had to pay attention to the tool catalog given away by the Tool Truck Guy. I mean, I'd be parked in the Comfy Chair, thumbing through the Wish Books, and I had to remind myself whether I was looking at the MATCO (They started out as Mac Allied Tool COmpany, but by the time I was buying, the were Mechanic's American Tool COmpany) (they don't call themselves that any more) or the Mac Tool catalog--lots of stuff looked the same, and had the SAME PART NUMBERS. The MATCO guy claimed that MATCO was owned by "Chicago Pneumatic" which was NOT true--but both MATCO and CP were owned by the same parent company. Lots of MATCO air tools were CPs with different logos cast into the side. I have no idea how many times MATCO (or Matco) has been sold since then.
Matco is now a division of Fortive. I have no idea who's going to own them next month, or who they're going to use for suppliers. Far as I know, Matco makes tool boxes, (which is what they did when they were part of the Mac Tool brand--they made the Mac tool boxes) and buys-in everything else from outside "contract suppliers".
Its a very nice German-made angle grinder. Its still just an angle grinder.
