The Vulcan Tool Company was founded in Dayton in 1916, by several toolmakers as a small tool and die shop, and was purchased by Lee Amos Jones the following year. The company quickly expanded operations into the First World War and continued after. Some financial difficulties were experienced during the Great Depression, but Vulcan Tool bounced back during World War II, being one of the many Dayton companies that produced items for the war effort.

After WWII, Vulcan purchased Dayton Tool and Engineering Company and began diversifying its products, adding the patented “Brehm” shimmy die and tube cutter – a device that shears metal tubing with no waste. In 1959, Vulcan Tool Company conducted experiments involving the cutting of normal uranium slugs and tubes on one of these Brehm cutters. Vulcan soon became known internationally for its development of tube-cutting machinery.

The Vulcan Tool Company, circa 1950s. Source

Jones’s son, Lee Warren Jones, had founded another Dayton company called Tube Products Company in 1939. 34 years later, in 1973, Tube Products Company and Vulcan Tool Company merged to become Vulcan Tool Corporation. In 1990, Vulcan Tool became part of the Ruthman Family of Companies, expanding availability of their products into Europe and Asia.

Vulcan Tool Corporation still operates in the same Dayton location today: