1956
Our History 2006
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Mark (left) with the founder of Aerosharp Tool Company,
Jim Huff |
The company
was founded by James D. Huff in 1956 as Eversharp Tool Co. Inc. He and his
two brothers, Leonard and Earl, were trained as rotary file (burr)
handgrinders at
Severance Tool
Manufacturing Co. in the early 1930's.
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Burr
handgrinding is a
skill that is a true art form. It takes many years to learn how to
create and regrind the flutes by "freehand grinding". There are no jigs
or fixtures used in this operation, just a grinding wheel, a 2x lens and
the skill of these craftsmen.
Typically, a formed, solid carbide head is
brazed onto a high speed steel shank. Then the outside diameter of the
burr is ground by
machine to bring the head into concentricity with the shank. In the final
step, the "handgrinders" grind the flutes or "teeth". Until just a few
years ago there were no machines that could duplicate this skill. To this
day all regrinding is done freehand. There is still no faster way to
do short production runs. |
A "Freehand" grinder puts the finishing touches on a
burr. |
Years of Growth
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1956-1985
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Since most burrs are used in the cleaning and deburring of raw castings,
our first customers were foundries in the Milwaukee and Waukesha area of
Wisconsin. Before long however, Jim Huff had designed a Valve Seat Cutter
for the Briggs & Stratton engines used in many small engine applications.
Briggs and Stratton soon became our biggest customer as well as the
mainstay of the business for the next 30 years. The valve seats in every
Briggs engine during that period were generated by this remarkable valve
seat cutter! The flutes in these tools are also manufactured and reground
by hand. To this day we still produce this cutter for one of the engine
lines at Briggs. As we continued to grow in the years following, we added more variety
to our product line as well as new automated equipment. |
The Torch is Passed
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1985
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| In
1985 Jim's son, Mark Huff, bought the company. Under his leadership the
company has continued to keep abreast of technological advances in the
cutting tool industry through the aquisition of CNC grinders, the
installation of state of the art computer and CAD systems (and now, even
this web site!) |
A Change of Name
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1990
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| In
1989, because of the number of other companies operating under the name "EVERSHARP"
and owing to the fact that many of our products were being produced for
the aerospace industry, we applied for and received a registered trademark
for the name "AEROSHARP"® which has been our name since Jan. 1,
1990. We look forward to another fifty years of service under our new
name. With your continuing support and confidence in our products, we have
every expectation of attaining that goal.! |
