Bradford Tool Industries

Bradford Tool Industries is a tool manufacturing company based in Johnston, Pennsylvania. The company's line of tools are viewed as industrial strength alternatives to the popular Craftsman line of tools. Whereas Craftsman products are sold through a variety of department stores, such as Sears, Bradford's tools are only available though official Bradford stores or catalogs.

History

Bradford Industries was founded in 1908 by Norman L. Bradford. Bradford founded his company with the hopes of mass producing airplanes, as he was inspired by Henry Ford and his production of the Model T. However, Bradford abandoned this plan when Thomas Selfridge became the first person to die in a plan crash. This led Bradford to dismiss the airplane as a viable invention, claiming "The airplane is a not a notable bor viable machine. It will be forever restricted to the use of thrill seekers and dare devils, and anyone else who does not value their own life"

As a result, Bradford would not step onto a plane until after his death in 1957, as his ashes were spread over the Atlantic Ocean. The abandoning of plane manufacturing left Bradford with a large empty factory, with nothing to make. It is unknown what spurred Bradford to decde to make tools, but in 1909 the factory began manufacturing a variety of common tools.

In 1927, the company began a longstanding rivlry with Craftsman tools. While Bradford tools held a reputation for durability and quality, Craftsman quickly gained favor with most consumers due to their iexpensive prices ad wide availability at Sears.

Bradford often insulted Craftsman's quality, once saying, in reference to lifetime warranty, "The only guarantee that comes with buying a Craftsman tool is the guarantee that you will have to buy another in quick succession when the current one is worn"

After Bradford's death in 1957, the company was spilt between his two sons, Brad and Gary. Both sons sought to increase the slumping sales of the company by partnering with B. Altman and Company department stores in Pennsyvania in the hopes of getting their tools to a wider range of people.

However this plan was abanoned when the St. Davids' location closed in 1965.

From this point on Bradford Industries would focus exclusively on industrial strength tools, exploiting an area that Craftsman had not yet built up a reputations, do their lifetime warranties being voided by industrial use. This proved a successful strategy as Bradford tools are the most common tools sound on construction sites, while Craftsman continues to dominate the home supplies.

Recent Events

As of 2007, the brothers Brad and Gary are still the heads of the company and have announced a partnership with Caterpillar, Inc. that allows Caterpillar to sell select lines of Bradford Tools in their dealerships.