The Leading Supplier of Manufacturing Equipment Serving the Welding and Metalforming Industry Worldwide.
The FEDERAL Machine and Welder Company was organized for the dual purpose of contesting the patent and building welders for the 126 sheet metal manufacturers who subsequently became the company’s stockholders.
The Berkeley Machine Company in Danville, Illinois in 1942. He developed one of the first automatic longitudinal seam arc welders for light gauge temporary pipelines from combat tankers to shore. Approximately 75 machines were built for the armed services. As a result of this success the Berkeley Machine Company was firmly established in the automatic arc welding field.
John Berkeley (the son of L.J. Berkeley) and Charles Davis started Berkeley-Davis, a company that was in direct competition with the Berkeley Machine Company.
FEDERAL was also seeking to expand into the automatic arc welding business and accomplished their goal by purchasing a controlling interest in Berkeley-Davis.
A series of mergers took place. FEDERAL merged into the McKay Machine Company of Youngstown, Ohio. McKay was a manufacturer of strip processing equipment seeking to diversify. At the same time McKay bought the remaining portion of Berkeley-Davis and Berkeley Machine. Thereby, successfully merging the two companies into Berkeley-Davis in 1960. The manufacture of the FEDERAL line was consolidated with Berkeley-Davis arc welders in 1963 in Danville, and became a solely owned subsidiary of Wean-United, Inc.
Virtually all of the assets of the Berkeley-Davis Company were purchased by the newly formed company of Automation International, Inc.
A.I.I. acquired the intellectual property of Hess Industries’ Rim and Wheel Division. Hess Industries was located in Niles, Michigan and was a major competitor in the role of industry leader in the design and manufacture of automated wheel production equipment including welding, metal-forming, assembly and spinning.
A.I. Welders, Ltd. U.K., originally located in Inverness, Scotland, an asset purchase, was acquired and brought to Automation International’s facility in Danville, IL. A.I. Welders Ltd. provided metal joining machinery, metal forming systems and related equipment globally for over 125 years. This purchase added to Automation International’s established role as an industry leader in the design and manufacture of automated welding equipment including metal forming, production equipment, welding, assembly and spinning. It also added two new product lines in friction welding and anode rod aluminum welding equipment.