#eclipse counterbore

In 1959, the Eclipse Counterbore Company was making end mills and other cutting devices at their plants in Michigan.  These are machinist's cutting tools that are basic to the milling process.

Little information is available about the origins of Eclipse Counterbore.  The earliest reference I could find was from 1917.  A book called "Perry's Guide of Detroit and Suburbs" listed them at 24 John R Street.  Judging by pictures of the neighborhood in downtown Detroit, this was most likely a small workshop.

1918: The annual report from the Michigan Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics states that Eclipse Counterbore had 18 employees on June 25 and 34 employees on October 18.

1922: By this date, the company had expanded and had a factory at 7410 St. Aubin Street, Hamtramck, according to an ad in the American Machine Tool and Record magazine.  That volume referred to the company as the Eclipse Interchangeable Counterbore Company.

Throughout the 1930s, the company was awarded patents for new cutting tool designs and faced litigation with companies such as the Gairing Tool Co. over competing designs. (Circuit Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit)

1943: The company was significantly involved in war production throughout WWII.  In 1943, the left wing Mechanics Educational Society of America, a militant independent union, called a strike at the Hamtramck plant due to their exclusion from the War Labor Board. ("Called To Explain No-Strike Defiance", NY Times, 2/14/1943)

At some point, a factory was also built at 1600 Bonner Avenue in Ferndale, MI.

1962: Illinois Tool Works, Inc. acquires the company (Chicago Tribune, 5/9/1962)

1987: Illinois Tool Works spins off the Detroit-based Eclipse Counterbore Division and the Pine Bluff, Arkansas Drill and End Mill Division into a new company: Eclipse Industrial Products, Inc. of St. Louis. (Reuters, 3/20/1987)

1991: Eclipse Industrial Products is purchased by the Harbour Group of St. Louis, a holding company that purchases and restructures/resells/divests/downsizes manufacturing companies. 

1992: The Pine Bluff plant and its machinery had been sold to YG-1 Co. Ltd. of Korea, the same company that absorbed the remnants of Winter Brothers taps (see below). (Arkansas Business magazine, 4/27/1992) 

Both the 7410 St. Aubin Street, Hamtramck and the 1600 Bonner Avenue, Ferndale plants have been razed.  Their earlier building at 24 John R Street at the corner of Woodward Ave. in downtown Detroit still seems to be standing.