Company History

Since our founding in 1883, E.H. Wachs has enjoyed a rich history of product innovation and market leadership that has endured for over 125 years. The story of Wachs encompasses three centuries, four continents and four generations of the Wachs family.

The story begins in Europe, where a young Edward H. Wachs decided to emigrate from Germany to America. He began his career as an apprentice machinist in Ohio, before moving to Chicago, IL. In 1883 he founded a steam fitting firm that bore his initials and name - E.H. Wachs.

At first focused solely on steam fitting, after several years he recognized the need for a simple and reliable steam engine. E.H. Wachs designed and began manufacturing the Wachs Vertical Steam Engine, a single cylinder, double-acting vertical engine that ultimately would be manufactured in power ratings from 1 HP to 60 HP. The design of this steam engine proved so fundamentally sound that it would remain in constant production for the next 80 years.

As the new century dawned, Wachs diversified by manufacturing a line of coal mining machinery used in the sizing of coal for the Chicago firm of Roberts & Schaffer. Lasting for over 65 years, this established a pattern of building long term relationships that Wachs prides itself upon.

Business growth dictated another move in 1916 to a larger Chicago facility on Dayton Street, built to handle the needs of heavy machinery manufacturing. Branching out from steam engines and coal mining equipment, in 1917 Wachs designed and built a line of hand screw machines that firmly established the company in the machine tool industry.

The roaring 20s saw Wachs prosper, and by 1929 the company had grown to be one of the prime suppliers of machined components for sound movie projectors to the Western Electric Company. In the 1930's, as the Great Depression deepened, Wachs survived on jobbing work and machine repairs.

The conflict of the 1940s found the company engaged as a primary subcontractor to the Crane Company, involved in defense work for the Navy Valve Program. The contacts made during this period would propel the company in later years into natural gas and water utility products.

In 1944, E.H. Wachs purchased the valve division of National Machine Works and with it their manufacturing and gas plant equipment line. The postwar years saw a dramatic upswing in gas equipment manufacturing, with vastly increased sales to Chicago area gas suppliers Peoples Gas and Northern Illinois Gas.

In 1949 came the invention that would revolutionize industrial piping procedures. Realizing the need to safely cut natural gas transmission lines without the torching (heat) process then common, Wachs perfected a unique, cold cutting pipe machine that minimized the danger of explosion. It stunned the pipe cutting industry with its breakthrough design, driving itself around the pipe while simultaneously cutting and beveling. Utilizing a rotating milling cutter, it produced perfect weld preps in minutes. The most versatile machine of its kind, the Wachs Trav-L-Cutter is used in every corner of the globe. It offered field machinists unparalleled ease of setup, rugged reliability and the adaptability to handle most pipe and vessel diameters.

E.H. Wachs enjoyed phenomenal growth in the fifties. In 1953, Wachs developed another line of cold cutting machines, the ubiquitous Wachs Guillotine Pipe Saw. Responding to input from machinists in the field who demanded a rugged yet simple reciprocating saw to cold cut industrial pipe while avoiding the pitfalls and dangers of torch cutting, the Guillotine Pipe Saws remain the benchmark saw used around the world.

The increasing tensions of the Cold War found Wachs engaged in designing and producing machinery for Westinghouse Electric and the Navy, in connection with the Nuclear Submarine Program. This partnership formed the foundation of our Engineered Solutions Division, as Wachs branched out from this experience into specialized machines designed and built for the nascent nuclear power plant industry.

From 1950 to 1958, the line of Wachs pipe cutting machines grew to include new market segments. Machines initially designed for the natural gas utility industry came to be widely accepted by the power generation industry, oil refineries, water system operators and the contractors who served these industries.

In 1957 Wachs purchased the saw blade division of Illinois Tool Works. This acquisition allowed full control over production of our power saw blades, which would be nationally marketed under the Wachs Guillotine trademark. This purchase marked an important first step in the growth of Genuine Wachs blades and tooling, and our initial contact with the future ITW Corporation.

Responding to the needs of oil refineries, water system and pipeline operators among others, in 1958 Wachs developed and introduced a line of portable, handheld power operated valve turning machines. Today, this product line includes handheld operators in three different drives for both rising and non-rising stem valves. Added later would be truck and trailer mounted valve operators with the power to handle large, industrial and water system valves. Completing the decade was the 1959 introduction of the Wachs Bev-L-Grinder, filling a need to accurately bevel small diameter steel pipe.

As the fifties turned to the sixties, E.H. Wachs discontinued the manufacturing of steam engines and the supplying of repair parts for these engines. In 82 years of manufacturing there were over 10,550 Wachs Steam Engines built, a testament to the inherent quality of its design and manufacturing excellence.

After exiting the steam engine business it was decided to discontinue outside jobbing work altogether, dedicating our staff and facilities exclusively to Wachs manufactured products. An equally important event occurred in 1966, when E.H. Wachs sold its building in the City of Chicago and moved to a new, larger facility in Wheeling, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.

In 1970, Wachs established a new entity called Power Cutting, Inc, or PCI. PCI was a joint sales and service company specializing in pipe cutting and machining services in the field using Wachs manufactured equipment. The PCI relationship allowed Wachs to benefit from the growing need for service cutting and in-situ machining in fossil and nuclear power plants, chemical plants and refineries. It led directly to additional product development, and an insider's knowledge of the industry's needs. The PCI division would later be sold to Westinghouse Electric Company.

The seventies would also see the expansion of E.H. Wachs into additional products designed and built specifically for the water utility industry. In 1971 the Wachs Utility Products division designed, prototyped and tested the first TM series truck mounted valve operator, the TM-1. Introduced to serve the growing need in the water distribution industry for a high powered, portable and easy to use valve exerciser, it proved to be a highly successful, durable design.

It was the progenitor of our current microprocessor controlled TM-7 and ERV-750, available with our industry leading VITALS software. The Wachs Submersible Pump was developed at the same time to provide high capacity de-watering of valves vaults to assist in valve servicing and turning.

One year later, Wachs completed the development of a portable turning machine for rising stem valves. Now sold as the RS-2, this machine was introduced to offer the refining, petrochemical, chemical and pipeline industries a valve turning machine that could handle rising stem, hand-wheel activated valves.

In 1974, our PCI group had began researching portable lathes for its nuclear field services, after identifying a substantial market for this style machine tool. Learning from experience what changes would make for a more effcient tool, in 1977 Wachs introduced the new EP-1 End Prep Lathe.

Development of the concrete cylinder pile cut off saws began in 1968 when we built our first hand-fed saw in cooperation with Raymond International. The line was subsequently expanded to include three fully automatic cutoff systems. These were developed and field-tested at Raymond's Ju' Aymah trestle project in Saudi Arabia over a period of three years. In 1979 Wachs offered these cutoff systems for square concrete piles to the public, following two years of successful field testing.

The use of hydraulic power for our pipe cutting machines and pile cutting machines resulted in the development of a full line of hydraulic power units (HPU) to power these machines. Today the Wachs HPU line includes electric, gasoline, and diesel powered cart and skid mounted units with a wide range of horsepower and pressure ratings. In 1978 Wachs expanded the Wheeling plant to supply additional floor space for fabrication and assembly.