When did Brown & Sharpe become a division of Hexagon?

Oh no! they have a factory in China.

Company profile - B&S web site.

That isn't the Brown and Sharpe that we old timers knew. Hexagon just snapped off the name and a specific product line.

From the looks of it, Hexigon has a stable of pretty good old time measuring tool names.

How that Co has changed over the years, I used to sell the big VMC's and won orders from Bridgeport and Cintimatic due to the B&S features.

Sad to see it go this way.

TIME LINE
Brown & Sharpe
David Brown
Joseph Rodgers Brown
Lucian Sharpe

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1833 Partnership is formed between David Brown and his son Joseph. Firm is called David Brown & Son, located at 60 South Main St. in Providence; making and repairing clocks and watches.

1848 Lucian Sharpe begins his apprenticeship with Joseph R. Brown

1853 Joseph takes on Lucian as a partner. Firm is renamed J. R. Brown & Sharpe

1855 The company begins producing the vernier caliper

1861 Introduction of the Universal Milling Machine which is the first machine to cut twist drills; is also used in the making of rifle barrels for the Union Army during the civil war.

1868 The business is incorporated as Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. having 14 employees.
*Note: Of interest because this firm had 60 employees in 1860. An example of men losing their jobs to the new machinery available.

1872 Company relocates to Promenade Street in Providence.

1875 First Universal Grinding Machine is produced.

1876 Joseph R. Brown dies

1898 Company grows to 1,500 employees as it increasingly specializes in the machine tool industry.

1899 Lucian Sharpe dies, replaced by Henry D. Sharpe, who resists expanding beyond its machine tool origins.

1932 Machine orders fall during the great depression; work force shrinks to 1,300.

1941 The International Association of Machinists and others organize workers. Strikes occur in 1942, 1943 and 1944.

1943 Employment tops 11,000 workers.

1951 A 13 week strike shuts down the company.

1956 Company expands internationally, opening a plant in England. Other European plants are acquired in the coming years.

1964 Company moves to a new building on Frenchtown Road in North Kingstown.

1970 Machine Tool orders are down 58 percent, company lays off 700 employees.

1975 Engineers stage 7-week strike.

1980 Company reports profits of $14.5 million on sales of $227.5 million, with 4,400 workers in Rhode Island, Michigan and North Carolina as well as four foreign countries.

1981 Machinists stage one of the longest strikes in American History.

1991 Company stops making its signature machinery, citing years of losses from foreign competitors; lays off 270 workers.

1996 Henry D. Sharpe resigns as chairman.

1997 Company lays off about 140 workers in its European plants.

1998 Thermo Electron's off to buy Brown & Sharpe for $15.50 a share is rejected.

1999 Company lays off 230 workers at four plants in the United Kingdom.

March 2000 Financial losses mount; Frank T. Curtin is replaced as chairman, president and CEO by Kenneth N. Kermes.

April 2000 Company reports losses of $42.9 million on sales of $322 million. It has 2,400 employees, including 450 in Rhode Island.

July 2000 Unable to resolve its problems with creditors, company considers putting itself up for sale or merger.

November 2000 Company announces sale of main business to Hexagon A.B. of Stockholm, Sweden.

I once saw a Brown and Sharpe no. 2 vertical mill made in the late 1970's in Tawain ! Seemed to be just as nice as the original versions. I wonder if B&S subbed out other manual machines to Tawain in the 70's ?

I am not sure, what I am sure of is that B&S had a direct sales force selling the screw machines and I assume other products. We picked up the VMC line after Cincinati dropped us along with all other Cintimatic distributors in the early 70's, not sure of the exact year.

I have a 2003 B&S catalog, and it says nothing about Hexagon. It has B&S and Tesa in it.

Brown and Sharpe, Inc. sold their Measuring Systems Group and their Precision Measuring Instruments Division to Hexagon (a Swedish company) in June, 2001.
http://www.allbusiness.com/periodicals/article/797438-1.html

The sale included Brown and Sharpe factories in Italy (the former DEA operation), Germany (the one-time Leitz plant), Lithuania (the Precizika CMM factory that B&S acquired from the former Soviet Union), and the Brown and Sharpe factory in Quianshao China, in addition to the Precision Park factory in central Rhode Island.

The Chinese factory makes CMM's soley for the Chinese market. That is a SMART business move unlike another American precision tool company who now makes their bread-and-butter tools in China for American consumption.
The large majority of B&S goods are made in Rhode Island and Switzerland. B&S bought Tesa over 50 years ago simply because the Swiss are so good at what they do.
Hexagon has funds and is giving B&S the tools needed to 'get er done'! Check them out at hexagon.se
That is a far cry from the incredibly stupid era of Frank Curtain who, as is usual in America these days, got rewarded handsomely for bringing a good company to its knee's!

The Chinese factory makes CMM's soley for the Chinese market.

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Peddler, just curious -- but how do you know this?

Since many of the B&S "precision hand tools" (parallels, gage blocks, etc) appear to be made in China, wouldn't they also be made in the Brown and Sharpe factory in Quianshao, China?

According to the Brown & Sharpe Web page, the US office seems to be for sales and support of Hexagon products:

Brown & Sharpe, a division of Hexagon Metrology, Inc., offers the most complete line of dimensional metrology products anywhere in the world. Coordinate measuring machines, precision measuring instruments, software, and post-warranty aftermarket services that keep measuring systems operating at peak performance levels are all available through a worldwide distribution channel and our strategically located Precision Centers. In North America, Brown & Sharpe provides sales, distribution, service and support for Hexagon Metrology brands DEA, Leitz and TESA.

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BTW, many of your posts on PM seem to relate to B&S -- are you an employee, or a dealer?

The catalog that I have, has different symbols for place of origin. They are:
Made in USA
Made in Switzerland
Made in 'the European Community'
Made somewhere in the world.
So it is kind of hard sometimes to track down just where something was made, for those of us who care. On a few items, there is no symbol. So maybe B&S doesn't even know?

When something says, 'European Community', that could be Germany or Poland.

I have also noticed that some of their stuff resembles General Tool. Their thread gages look like General Tool's except for the knob. Their magnetic stands look like Bunting Magnet.

Art Deco, could you look up the country origin symbol for the Brown & Sharpe parallels and the 1-2-3 blocks?

These are definitely made in China, but they have no country of origin stamped on the block, nor the silver B&S case.

I have also noticed that some of their stuff resembles General Tool. Their thread gages look like General Tool's except for the knob. Their magnetic stands look like Bunting Magnet.

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Yep, most of the General Tools are Chinese. So an SPI, Brown & Sharpe, General and Enco thread gage will all look identical, because they're coming from the same place in China.

Here are the six symbols they have in the 2003 catalog:
</font>

• US made
  TESA Design Swiss Made
  TESA Design - Product from the European Community
  TESA Design - Product produced outside Europe
  Product from the European Community
  Product produced outside Europe</font>

For the Universal 1-2-3 blocks, #598-750-50,no symbol is given.

For the Ultra Presision Ground 1-2-3 Blocks, #599-750-10, the symbol given is for 'Produced outside Europe'.

No country of origin given for any of the parallels.

They show USA as origin for the 750 V-block sets. And for the wiggler, edge finders, spring dividers, planer/shaper gage, and tool makers vise #599-9225-5

Thanks Art Deco!

For the Ultra Presision Ground 1-2-3 Blocks, #599-750-10, the symbol given is for 'Produced outside Europe'.

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China is outside Europe

I have the B&S "Ultra Precision 1-2-3 Blocks" and they are identical (including nearly identical tolerances when measured with a DTI) to the $9 Chinese 1-2-3 blocks I bought from Enco.

So how many of their hand tools are marked "Product produced outside Europe" (i.e., "Made in China")?

Where are their electronic calipers and micrometers made? I know they're marked "Made by Tesa," but they look suspiciously like the Fowler Chinese equivalents...

I need to get a Brown and Sharpe catalog!

I'm just a big fan of B&S and have followed them since my Dad gave me my first B&S micrometer in the '50's. I also worked for a distributor who sold both B&S and MTI back in the '70's and several distributors since then who, as is the usual case since MTI polluted the distribution network with their 'you got $300.00 for a stocking order AND a big trunk, here's a pile of catalogs... you're on!' method of adding everyone as a distributor back in the day. It worked, they darn sure gained market share despite the price of their stuff going from 1/2 the price of LSS and B&S to sometimes more expensive these days. By the way, MTI also builds a lot of equipment in China these days but who cares?
I've been to the North Kingstown facility on business and also have been to the Tesa facility in Renens. That place is, in a word, impressive and the work ethic and attention to detail as well as the pride with with the Tesa employees work harkens back to the good old days of pride and craftsmanship. I saw the assembly line that builds the digital calipers and can assure you they are 100% Swiss made in the Renens facility.
It was B&S/Tesa who invented the first digital caliper by the way. It wasn't the greatest as battery consumption sucked if you didn't initialize per the instruction after installing new batteries and the glass scale was exposed. Bad news in a shop environment! What they did though that no other caliper in the world could do was zero anywhere and convert inch/metric on the fly. We take digital calipers for granted these days but they were quite the innovation in their time.
Yeah, I admit it, I like the B&S stuff for the most part and HATE the fact any of it might be built in Communist Red China. Seems to me that move should be left to people like Fowler who don't manufacture a darn thing that is in their catalog.

I think all of the micrometers are USA or Swiss according to this catalog.

Dial and test indicators are Swiss, German and English.

I have one B&S micrometer that is made in France.

Dial and test indicators are Swiss, German and English.

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Wow, I didn't know that B&S had DTI indicators other than Tesa?

By the way Peddler, I do love my black dial BestTest indicators. I recently won a white BestTest tenth indicator on Ebay -- wish it came in Black too. They're so much easier to read.

I do keep a reasonably good-quality Chinese 5 tenth's indicator for tramming my knee mill -- I don't worry about bumping the probe across the T-Slots that way