Classes in the chisel factory
Photo: Tyrone Turner for the NY Times
Hard Cap cold chisels appeared in cool factory-tour photo gallery in the New York Times recently, which explained how Baltimore Toolworks has added modern features to a stone-age tool.
Third-generation Baltimore Toolworks owner Downie McCarty has indeed improved his American-made product to better compete with cheaper foreign models—but the short writeup in the Times omitted a point that McCarty emphasized to me in a visit to the TOH office.
By producing his tools in the US, McCarty is giving industrial design students a rare chance to participate in the manufacturing process.
"The kids are so bright," says McCarty, who has collaborated with the University of Delaware for the past 5 years. "It's really been a phenomenal program."
Photo: Tyrone Turner for the NY Times
The first semester of students working at BT helped develop the testing protocols for the tools, both designing and building the test equipment for use on the new product.
It went so well that the University continued the program, allowing subsequent rounds of students to research the physics of struck tools, and to determine the characteristics of the polymer Hard Cap would go on to use in the chisels' vibration-dampening shell.
In all likelihood, these kids probably won't be making a career banging out chisels.
But having an opportunity to help put a product on the market, and recognizing the complexity in a seemingly simple piece of steel, I think will certainly influence and hopefully improve whatever they do end up designing.
More:
Our review of Hard Cap cold chisels.
(2) Comments
This is one of the coolest ideas that I have seen in a long time.
This has actually become quite common at most engineering schools in the US. I also would bet its fairly common in other countries as well. When I was in school we worked with a company that produced circuit boards, while other groups worked on engine blocks for GM, pump design, and some prosthetic limbs. Personally I thought it sounded a lot more interesting and useful that it acutaly was, but others might have a different opinion.