The Detroit Edge Tool Co. was founded 141 years ago on the shores of the Detroit River, where it manufactured and sharpened blades for the booming lumber industry of the 19th century. Now, the company’s products are used to create airplanes and other advanced, high-precision machinery.
“We can thank our grandfather and our fathers for diversifying and not staying in one industry,” says John Ebbing Jr., vice president of Detroit Edge Tool and part of the fifth generation of Ebbings to run the company.
“Back in the 1980s, we were pretty dependent on automotive; now one of our specialties is box ways and rails for aerospace, which are essentially super-precise rails that machines ride back and forth on to make aircraft or in automation settings,” explains Patrick Ebbing, president of the company and another member of the fifth generation of Ebbing ownership.
Patrick and John Jr.’s fathers, Ray and John Ebbing Sr., are still on the company’s board and are co-owners of Detroit Edge Tool.
Founded on June 24, 1885, as the Detroit Edge Tool Works Inc., the enterprise reportedly is the third-oldest company in the city of Detroit operating in its original capacity.
In the 1920s, the Ebbing family took ownership of the company. In 1935, it emerged from a bankruptcy as Detroit Edge Tool Co. and pivoted its focus during World War II toward machine tool components such as precision detachable ways, rails, and plates.
In recent decades, the company has expanded its capabilities through strategic acquisitions and facility growth. Opening plants in Wisconsin and acquiring two companies in England between 1979-2000, Detroit Edge became the largest manufacturer of scrap processing shear blades in the world, in addition to producing its legacy products.
Today, the company has consolidated into two facilities: one near Eight Mile and Mound roads on Detroit’s east side that focuses on machine tools, and one in Roseville that specializes in products for the scrap metal and demolition industries. The two facilities, combined, span approximately 90,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
Detroit Edge offers three distinct product groups: shear blade manufacturing, machine tool component manufacturing, and flame-hardening of metal with Michigan Flame Hardening Co., which it acquired in 1998.
Most (60-70 percent) of its customers are OEM machine builders and rebuilders in the aerospace, defense, automotive, steel mill, scrap, and demolition equipment sectors. Detroit Edge also sells to end users at individual scrap yards, demolition facilities, and manufacturing facilities.
Patrick Ebbing credits his predecessors’ diversification activities and the company’s continued conservative approach to business for keeping the operation going for 141 years.
“By being a debt-free business and constantly reinvesting in the business, we’re able to run a pretty conservative and efficient organization,” he says. “One of our stated goals is to buy one new machine every year.”
The company also retrofits its older machines to keep them operational, including a grinding machine from the 1940s that functions alongside more modern, climate-controlled computer-aided machines that provide “ultra precision.”
The company also is keeping an eye on the future.
“We have to continue to innovate and continue to improve our efficiency,” Patrick Ebbing says. “We compete internationally with products from Europe, China, and India, and there’s some pretty cheap labor out there that we’re competing against.”
One of the company’s challenges is recruiting, training, and retaining skilled workers. The Ebbings are working with local trade schools, especially Roseville High School, to help train their future workers.
Another future goal for the Ebbing family and Detroit Edge Tool Co., according to Patrick Ebbing, is that “we’d like to keep the business in the family if we can.”
