The Beginning of DeWalt, a Power Tool Giant

From the time he was a child Raymond E DeWalt watched and learned from his father the intricacies of woodworking and complex construction. Upon leaving school as an adolescent, he continued to follow this path and earned his keep at mills and construction sites as jobs were available. The young DeWalt though, also learned from his father that a life in mill-work was difficult one, and in order to simplify his own life and to capitalize on both the physical and economical expenses of hard labor, he used the advantages of his youth and experience to continually refine and enhance the machines around him to meet the certain needs and specifications of different jobsites.

DeWalt's ingenuity and expertise in the field were largely and always evident and soon he was offered a position as the head of a major woodworking mill that manufactured nearly everything from the simple six-panel box to the modern, complex home. As fate would have it, DeWalt's mill had more work than it could handle and as the President of the company allowed no budget space for additional labor costs, DeWalt simply had to get more efficient production from the existing force. DeWalt was forced into a jam and emerged with the first working model of what we know today as the radial arm saw.

Designing a yoke which attached directly to a saw and motor, and mounting this mechanism to a standard arm, DeWalt's machine could be raised and lowered, could slide back and forth, and could tilt to any bevel; as a result, DeWalt generated the work of four men with this machine, he reduced production costs, and completely enhanced overall productivity in the process. By 1922, and as Superintendent of Seabrook Farms, DeWalt perfected his radial arm machine and forever altered the woodworking, crafting, and building industries.

Just two years later in 1924 DeWalt formed the DeWalt Products Company and purchased a plant and office building in Leola, Pennsylvania where he marketed the "Wonder-Worker," the electrical, universal woodworking machine he'd developed at Seabrook Farms. In 1929 Dewalt Products Company upgraded their facilities with a new and modern plant and office building in Lancaster, PA where after adding 40,000 square feet of manufacturing space, an 8,400 square foot showroom, and a 16,000 square foot warehouse, they still remain today. In 1947, DeWalt Products Company completely reorganized and reincorporated itself under DeWalt Inc. Later, only further augmenting their enterprise, DeWalt Inc. extended its operations to Canada and acquired the United States and Canadian patent rights to the Bennett Two-Way Panel Saw.

In the spirit of DeWalt's first radial arm saw, 1967 crashed another wave upon the shores of the tooling community as DeWalt introduced the bench grinder and soon followed this introduction with that of intense metal cutting machines for both ferrous and non-ferrous metals. In 1992, DeWalt introduced their first line of portable electric power tools and accessories especially designed for professional commercial and residential workers. Just two short years later in 1994, DeWalt launched their new and generally ground-breaking system of cordless power tools which included more than 30 full-blown, full-fledged, jaw-dropping power tools in the line-up. Among them, a 14.4V cordless drill/driver, which was, at the time, the most powerful cordless tool on the market, and the first ever drill/driver/hammerdrill combination tool. Allowing crafters to work with far greater productivity and to build with a high-performance power tool, the system took construction to a wholly new leve! l.

By 2001 the DeWalt Inc. enterprise included over 200 electric power tools and over 800 accessories to enhance them. Today, after more than nine decades of innovation in the woodworking and power tool industries, DeWalt continues to propel the community to new heights. Accordingly, DeWalt remains one of the most trusted and high-performance brands in the industry.