About a decade ago - when I first started paying attention to old hand tools at garage sales, used tool stores and the tool boxes of friends and their parents (especially) - I first noticed the ETF brand and was intrigued that many of the tools were stamped "St. Catharines". St. Catharines is a city about a 45 minute drive from Toronto and quite close to Niagara Falls.
I'm pretty computer-literate, so I thought it would be a fairly easy thing to find the ETF story but, to my amazement, I could find almost nothing except for the occasional ad on craigslist or kijiji for a rusty pipe wrench or pliers! Even the fact that ETF stood for "Engineering Tool & Forgings Limited" was only mentioned once!
Basically, I was only able to determine the following:
- It was a family-owned and was in business from 1932-1965 for certain.
- C. Bruce Hill was President in 1932, followed by his son (whose name I do not know).
- Engineering Tool & Forgings Limited was the actual name of the company.
- ETF Tools Limited was being used by 1951 - the year they acquired Canadian Warren Pink Co. Limited (which was later sold in 1965).
- I had seen pliers, Stillson-pattern pipe wrenches and open-end wrenches.
And that was about it!
The breakthrough came only last week while I was researching yet another old Canadian company - Will (more on them later!). I finally had the clue that led to much of the ETF story.
I now believe that 1932 was the year ETF was started (not merely that they were in business then) and I've confirmed the factory was located at:
21 WOODBURN AVENUE
ST CATHARINES, ON L2P 2W6
The building no longer stands, but it did until quite recently. The address of the original factory seems to have been occupied by
at least three different businesses since vacated by ETF: Ideal Plumbing, E & M Car & Truck Oil Spraying, and Woodburn Storage.
In 1950, ETF registered a trademark for "Bulldog" and for "Pipemaster" in 1963.
By 1985, the legal name of the company seems to have changed to an Ontario Numbered Company (603435 ONTARIO INC.) while still carrying on business as ETF Manufacturing:
By 1993, the company had been acquired by MAXTECH METAL PRODUCTS INC. - a Waterloo-based company who manufactured for the automobile industry, but now is only an importer of low-end hand tools re-badged for retailers like Canadian Tire and Home Depot as well as under their own brand.
By 2006, the property was owned by Brickyard Developments Ltd. who had City approval by 2009 to develop the Heritage Point Subdivision.
The location can be seen here:
Now, as some of you know, Neals bought a 1962 ETF Catalogue off eBay last week - the only one I've
ever seen:
and, as you can see, the product line was actually quite large!
In addition to the products I mentioned above, I've since seen nail pullers and wood chisels (a set sold for quite a lot of money on eBay last week):
But, best of all, after learning all the above, I happened to find a fellow who used to work at the plant! His name is Bill Andrews and he was the youngest man to work in the factory at 19yo in 1962-63. He was kind enough to share some memories and photos from his private collection!
Hi Lorne,
Well , this is certainly a history lesson for me! You have the correct location. I rented a house for a year on Ravine Rd. with ETF facing my back yard where a set of train tracks ran under the Queenston St. bridge which is gone now. I started there in 1962 and was hired by Wally Nutt who was in charge of running the plant. I enjoyed working there, doing many jobs, from sandblasting, heat treating, painting, assembling and working in shipping. The tools were high quality drop forged and tempered to last for years. They didn't make sockets and also some tools like grape cutters which came from Italy. As the Japanese tools came into the country at a cheaper price, the company lost market share. Big factories like GM still bought tools from ETF as they knew they would last. I have many tools, not the nail remover as in your photo, but many hand tools from pipe wrenches, open end & box, pliers, wire cutters, and various tin snips. If you would like photos of the tools I would be happy to send you some. I will ask my sister in law, if she has photos that her parents may have passed on to her. The library in St. Catharines might have some pictures also . I had my vehicle oil sprayed at that location years ago and Burnstein Brick had a plant there also for many years . When I was laid off in 1963, I got a job with GM, put in 30 years & retired in 1993.
I found this old picture of my father in law working in the polishing room, looks like he's polishing a pipe wrench. I worked on an electro-magnetic heat induction machine that would heat up the pipe wrench jaws in seconds and when the colour was a golden yellow, it was dunked in oil to get the right hardness required and then polished. I also painted many tools from dipping to spray painting them. I hope to get more info for you from my sis in law as she know more than I about the last years of the factory .
Regards , Bill Andrews
So here are some shots of Bill's excellent collection!
and some examples of the types of wrenches made by ETF...
Here is a picture of Bill's first father-in-law, Vernon Harper, at work in the plant polishing a pipe wrench!
And here he is again in 1981 posing with some ETF grass shears!
Vern's 20-year pin!
Bill will contact me again if he comes across any more ETF-related info or materials and I'll post them here...
