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The Klein Tool addiction thread! :)

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willf650

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 10, 2010
Messages
803
Here's one for you. I'm 50 and this digging bar is older than me. I remember using this all my life as it was my father's.

I've bent modern digging bars before prying with them and never even had this one deflect on me.

Hated using this as a kid as it was heavy and you were busting asx when this came out. Got up close and personal with it this week and curios who made it. Says Klein Logan Bell System. I suspect this may be a different company or maybe division of Klein.

IMG_2592.jpegIMG_2591.jpeg
 
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neophyte

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Joined
Apr 23, 2012
Messages
9,615
Location
Pennsylvannia
Here's one for you. I'm 50 and this digging bar is older than me. I remember using this all my life as it was my father's.

I've bent modern digging bars before prying with them and never even had this one deflect on me.

Hated using this as a kid as it was heavy and you were busting asx when this came out. Got up close and personal with it this week and curios who made it. Says Klein Logan Bell System. I suspect this may be a different company or maybe division of Klein.

IMG_2592.jpegIMG_2591.jpeg
Items made for “Ma Bell” ie., Bell Systems, ie. the “Telephone Company” were usually marked with “Bell Systems”.
Bell would contract for the tools they needed, and sometimes switch suppliers.
“Klein Logan appears to be this manufacturer.


“Klein-Logan Co. was a Pittsburgh, PA, manufacturer of tools for railroads, paving, blacksmithing, and masonry. “

“On July 1st 1868, John C. Klein and Frederick C. Klein, brothers engaged in the manufacture of coal picks, hand shovels, pokers and other small iron items since 1856, took as a third partner Edward P. Logan and continued business under the firm name of Klein, Logan & Co. Because the business was located in Birmingham, at that time a suburb but now that part of Pittsburgh lying along the south bank of the Monongahela River, the Birmingham Tool Works was selected as a descriptive sub-title.”

So basically the company made tools for railroad and mining use, in a state heavily involved in the steel and coal industries.
 

KnurledNut

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
8,124
Location
n/a
Here's one for you. I'm 50 and this digging bar is older than me. I remember using this all my life as it was my father's.

I've bent modern digging bars before prying with them and never even had this one deflect on me.

Hated using this as a kid as it was heavy and you were busting asx when this came out. Got up close and personal with it this week and curios who made it. Says Klein Logan Bell System. I suspect this may be a different company or maybe division of Klein.

IMG_2592.jpegIMG_2591.jpeg
How long is that, around 8'? They made a telegraph digging bar, which would make sense for a company like Bell System. Longer than a slate bar and the chisel end was straight like yours instead of bent. Thats actually a really nice pattern and I can think of many occasions it would have been better than my slate bar.
 
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