The Tanite Company bench grinder. The base reads "The Tanite Co." and "Stroudsburg, PA [Pennsylvania]". My first flea market find. Bottom feeding doesn't get better than when you ask the seller what they want and its way less than the low ball offer you had in mind. $5 (US$2.70) changed hands and Carol, the elderly seller, was my new best friend. I got her number and called up her husband to see if he had any other "junk" he'd like to get rid of. When he said he wasn't sure I asked if the grinder was a one off. He said, "No, I had this old wood lathe I got in pieces. I never got around to doing anything with it and over the years it had deteriorated so I threw it out during our recent move. I realized after I shouldn't have." That took the smile off my face pretty quickly.
This company is referenced quite a bit on the Internet, particularly at Cornell's Making of America. In the 1860's T. (Thomas) Dunkin Paret developed a process for the treatment of waste leather, the resultant product suitable for a number of uses including a base for solid emery wheels. The Tanite Company was formed in 1867 as a manufacturer of emery wheels. From reading several journal pages it is clear that the company was a major player in the grinding business in the late 1800's. Of interest, in 1882 they were commissioned to produce a 36" diameter, 8" wide, 800 lb wheel and a 2,300 lb grinding machine to run it. Click here for a picture from the January 1883 issue of The Manufacturer and Builder.
