Valley Steel Stamp Company

History Of Valley Steel Stamp Co. 1947-1971

Greenfield, Massachusetts

History composed by: Bernard Ethier Jr.
November 2008

Valley Steel Stamp Company was founded in 1947 by two Greenfield men Bernard Ethier and Arthur Milkey who formed a partnership. Both men had been employees of Mohawk Steel Stamp Co. then located on Federal Street. Ethier had been with the company since he was a very young man and had learned the trade as an apprentice.

Up until WW Il, the creation of marking dies was very much a hand skill. The die was laid out on a block of unhardened tool steel with the aid of scribers and dividers along with a small machinist square. The lettering was, of course, reversed, so that the finished die would mark the piece in a readable manner. Once the layout had been made, the worker would sometimes remove the unwanted stock from the outside of the lettering on a small vertical milling machine, or, in the case of a roll die, a lathe. Furthur stock removal was then done with a hand file. All this process required the use of an engravers ball vise and a head loupe of about 5 magnification. Workers sat at a bench with a strong North light and gripped the work with both hands. To recess the area in the middle of certain letters like D, O, P, etc. the worker would strike the area with a pre-made hardened punch called a "counter". At this point the letters would have the sides of all the letters filed on a 45 degree angle.

Finally, using hardened engraving tools called " gravers"' the worker would manually cut the steel away to form the letters; inside corners would be picked out to finish the die. The completed die would then be heated to about 1500 degrees F in a small furnace and then quenched in warm oil. Then it would be left for several hours in more warm oil to temper the steel properly. The die would then be cleaned and checked for the proper hardness. This would then be mailed to the customer The blanks that the dies were made from varied considerably in size and shape as they had to fit the marking machine that the customer was using.

Since practically all objects made from metal would be marked with some sort of trademark or identification, the market was vast and diverse. On the local level, most of the work produced went to mark tools and related devices.

By the time Valley Steel Stamp was formed, new technology was changing the process. The Gorton Machine Co, was producing a pantograph machine that used an enlarged pattern which the worker followed while the cutting head of the tool reproduced the design on a much smaller scale on the die blank. This entirely replaced the hand-cutting method, made the process faster and produced a more consistent product. Additional skills were needed, however, as a master had to be made and the pantograph operator had to grind a variety of cutters for the machine. To save time on a simple straight-line stamp, movable plastic type was molded pantograph. that was held in a dovetail slide to serve as the master for the pantograph.

As time progressed, the simple carbon tool steels that were used for all hand-cutting were replaced by a tougher steel called “high speed steel". This was a metal with molybdenium added for greater strength and wear. Finally, for really difficult applications, such as marking hacksaw blades carbide was used. Since it was too hard to machine, new processes using an electrical discharge process were used. This process is used today almost exclusively; the pantograph machine is seldom seen today in any die-making shops.

Valley Steel Stamp Company was located up until its sale in 1971 at 184 Shelburne Road in the second floor of the Bond Cleaning building. The building was the original home of Turnbull's Ice Cream in building and still had the freezer rooms intact. Fortunately the building had a freight loading dock and an elevator which made moving machinery to the second floor possible. After the first few years, with only Ethier and Milkey, the company added two employees; Raymond Babbits of Greenfield and David Baker of Buckland. The author joined the company for five years beginning in 1956. About 1960 another young man, a refugee from the Hungarian revolution was hired: George Hadju. Two more employees were eventually hired, Joseph Dziekonski and Donald Avery, bringing the total workforce to eight.

Local customers included Wells Tool Co, of Greenfield, Bete Fog Nozzle and Mayhew Tool of Shelburne. Other customers were Millers Forge of Springfield, Utica Drop Forge, Union Twist Drill of Athol, Gorham Silver of Connecticut, W.E. Bassett Co. of Conn, to name a few.

Valley Steel Stamp as very involved with the research projects of Utic Drop Forge in Utica, NY. Jet aircraft engine blades were one of the first projects that were difficult to mark. Later Utica became very involved in the new technology of the pull-top beverage can. Early designs had the tab cold-welded to the 1id which pulled entirely off when the can was opened. This required complex die that injected the tab for welding at the same time it scored the top fo ropening. The Valley shop was awash with tabs and dies for quite a few years during this period of its early development

Utica engineers were frequent visitors to the shop and the project was , of course, most lucrative for the business. Business progressed through the 1960's and finally culminated in a legal battle over control of the business Valley Steel Stamp was purchased by a Mr, Capshaw in 1971 and continues in Greenfield. Mr. Ethier died in 1971 shortly after the sale, and Mr, Milkey died a year later.