Tools, and some sad news about a (former) local company
I was able to make a super buy today on some tools for my woodshop. I saw a post on the Pittsburgh Craigslist for a sale of “new and lightly used” metal- and wood-working tools in Oakmont, PA, which is quite near our little home. The reason for the sale was listed as a plant relocation.
The location had me a little worried, as I didn’t know too many groups who had shops that would have had new and lightly used woodworking machines. The one I did know about, Steel City Toolworks, was a brand and a company that I had been watching for a couple of years. One of their subsidiaries, Orion International, has been designing some of the new tools for Craftsman that have been turning-around that company’s image in terms of big tooling. Sears and Craftsman have taken some serious hits over the past several years, with power tools that just weren’t up to par and that were pretty shoddy. They have lately been interfacing with other companies to sell re-branded tools from some really good companies. As part of that effort, they turned to Orion to supply some of their power tools, and that seems to have been a really good move. They have some really solidly-built stuff available now. Anyway, I found out that Orion was a local company, based in Oakmont.
Some of the folks who founded Orion worked at other tool manufacturers, including Delta/Pentair and the WMH Tool Group (which owns the likes of Powermatic, etc.). These folks decided to form a new company to sell tools under their own brand, and started Steel City Toolworks, keeping Orion as an integral part of their operation, and keeping them as the brand sold to others for re-branding. Their operations were still centered in Oakmont.
I found out last night that the phone number went to the local Steel City office. I was hoping that they weren’t going out of business already. This morning, I called the number on the Craigslist ad. A friendly guy named Chuck talked to me, and answered all of my questions about the tools that they had for sale. The prices sounded great (more than 50% off for tools that were literally new in the box). They had a beautiful table saw available, but I just couldn’t do that right now. They also had a nice 6″ jointer and a 1.5HP dust collector, both of which I needed. They had a slow-speed grinder, which is something I’ve been looking to get to make my sharpening tasks go faster. They also had some other various bits and pieces that sounded intriguing. Jenny approved, and I headed out this afternoon to pick up some of this stuff. I ended up coming home with almost $1000 of machinery for about $400.
While I was there, some of the last guys that they had working were helping to load things. I was waiting in the reception area for a while for someone to find me. One of the people who did find me happened to be the manager for the Orion tool line, and I later found out that she was one of the original founders of that company. She was quite friendly. I asked her about what was going on and what all was leaving, and she said that there was “a partnership gone bad” that was to blame, and that the entire local operation was closing. Everything was being consolidated to Nashville, where they could supposedly get better shipping rates, etc., and they already had some operations there. As I talked to some of the guys who were helping me to load my car, the bleakness was clear. One of them was in customer service, helping me to load my car on his last day with the company. When I was asking about whether he was moving to Nashville or another part of the organization, the way he put it to me was that, “they already had an operation down in Nashville, so we’re just done.” Essentially, it doesn’t sound like they were even given the opportunity to move, which is sad. Hopefully they’re getting good severance packages out of this mess. The one guy said that they might be there for another two weeks or so, probably packing things up and tying up the last few loose ends. They still had some inventory in their warehouse that probably has to ship out. They also clearly had a lot of tooling left that they were selling, so hopefully this will help some folks get some good deals on some great equipment.
They still have a good thing going as a brand. I feel bad that this is happening to local people, though, and what used to be a local brand is not anymore, but at least they are still in the US. The guys I talked to today were top-notch. They knew their equipment, and were quite generous with what they gave me. I always thought it was a shame that they didn’t have a direct marketing setup for local people–I would have spent some serious money there if they had. Oh well. I’ll have to see how I feel about them in a few months to see if I’ll buy anything from them again in the near future. 🙂
jonathan
