Here’s a tool company that isn’t (yet) on the Garage Journal INDEX of companies. The company had four name variations over the years and spent most of its time in Portland, Oregon, where it started in 1927. The company was in Riverside, California for roughly a decade starting in the mid 30’s before it went back to Portland. The modern version of the company was/is in Portland and Libby, Montana.
Company Name:
H. J. Hamlet,
then H. J. Hamlet & Son,
then L. N. Hamlet (starting about 1952),
and now Hamlet Industries.
The company appears to have made mostly (perhaps only) sheet metal products including: rivet sets, trammels, seamers, duct pullers, crimpers, notching tools, clinch punches, tinner's hammers and “almost anything in forged tools for Metal Workers”.
It was started by Heber James Hamlet. Before he started into toolmaking, he was a lumberman in West Virginia and then a manager of a creamery goods store in Oregon. He raised, showed, and sold poultry breeds and pigeons, often via his Oregon Carneau Company. He also made money selling cord wood and then selling ships knees (around WWI). He was also a grocer and part owner of a sawmill. His last venture before starting his tool career was selling “Hamlet’s Ointment” for “the piles”.
In 1960 and 1961, after his son Lloyd took over the company, Heber filed patents for “a process to refine and improve steel”. These two patents were later granted. (US2992096A and US3202504A)
Hamlet Tools is still in business. Its website says:
“Hamlet Industries continues to manufacture Hamlet Tools with the same quality and dedication as Heber Hamlet did in 1927. We are proud to be the fifth generation manufacturing these fine sheet metal hand tools.” “Note: we are small family company. We are not automated, and everything is done manually and by hand. We struggle to manage customer service; we understand this is frustrating and apologize for the inconvenience. Most all our time is spent working on manufacturing and the myriad of issues that come with it. Also note we do not operate this business 24/7.”
Their current products are trammels, seamers, duct pullers and crimpers.
NOTE: This company is NOT the same as the “Hamlet Tools” that makes woodturning tools.
(If anyone has an interest, I have more biographical info on Heber, and his son Lloyd Nathan Hamlet who took over around 1952)
This trip down a rabbit hole started with me finding a rivet set - photos are below. Also attached is a photo of a Hamlet Offset seamer (not mine).
Company Name:
H. J. Hamlet,
then H. J. Hamlet & Son,
then L. N. Hamlet (starting about 1952),
and now Hamlet Industries.
The company appears to have made mostly (perhaps only) sheet metal products including: rivet sets, trammels, seamers, duct pullers, crimpers, notching tools, clinch punches, tinner's hammers and “almost anything in forged tools for Metal Workers”.
It was started by Heber James Hamlet. Before he started into toolmaking, he was a lumberman in West Virginia and then a manager of a creamery goods store in Oregon. He raised, showed, and sold poultry breeds and pigeons, often via his Oregon Carneau Company. He also made money selling cord wood and then selling ships knees (around WWI). He was also a grocer and part owner of a sawmill. His last venture before starting his tool career was selling “Hamlet’s Ointment” for “the piles”.
In 1960 and 1961, after his son Lloyd took over the company, Heber filed patents for “a process to refine and improve steel”. These two patents were later granted. (US2992096A and US3202504A)
Hamlet Tools is still in business. Its website says:
“Hamlet Industries continues to manufacture Hamlet Tools with the same quality and dedication as Heber Hamlet did in 1927. We are proud to be the fifth generation manufacturing these fine sheet metal hand tools.” “Note: we are small family company. We are not automated, and everything is done manually and by hand. We struggle to manage customer service; we understand this is frustrating and apologize for the inconvenience. Most all our time is spent working on manufacturing and the myriad of issues that come with it. Also note we do not operate this business 24/7.”
Their current products are trammels, seamers, duct pullers and crimpers.
NOTE: This company is NOT the same as the “Hamlet Tools” that makes woodturning tools.
(If anyone has an interest, I have more biographical info on Heber, and his son Lloyd Nathan Hamlet who took over around 1952)
This trip down a rabbit hole started with me finding a rivet set - photos are below. Also attached is a photo of a Hamlet Offset seamer (not mine).
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