Beginning in 1931, Düsseldorf instrument maker Firma A. Schumann manufactured the first high-speed handheld rotary tool—at first it was marketed simply as a drill, but soon other uses were also mentioned—that had been developed by the founder's son, Robert Schumann. This 30,000 RPM device, trade name Diros, was predecessor to the Dremel tool that seems to have been developed independently.

Schumann's wife Anne Marks Schumann was an American, born in Ohio, who studied music in Germany as a young woman. The family had been making frequent trips to the U. S. in the 1920s and 1930s, and both sons went to Harvard University. Schumann had already registered one of his German patents with the U. S. In 1939 they left Nazi Germany for the U. S., intending to start a subsidiary of Firma A. Schumann. They settled in Racine, Wisconsin (it is not known whether it is merely a coincidence that they ended up in the small city that was also the headquarters of Dremel Manufacturing Co.) The plant in Düsseldorf was then seized by the Nazis. Although Robert was unable to find work in the U. S. as an engineer, he persevered and he and son Helmut started their U. S. business in a garage. In 1941 they founded Precise Products Co., which at some point became Precise Products Corp. In 1942 the Precise 35 handheld rotary tool was put into production, with the U. S. Navy and Air Corp being major customers. Younger son Reinhold was drafted when he graduated from college in 1943, sent to the European front, and at war's end was able to reclaim the family's Düsseldorf property.

After the war, the company manufactured products developed in the U. S. in both the U. S. and Germany in identical factories built from the same plans. All four family members were in the business, with Anne Schumann as vice president. In 1948, Precise introduced a new handheld rotary tool, the Super 40, with an all-aluminum housing and extensive improvements aimed at both precision and ruggedness. This 48,000 RPM rotary tool was then used as the basis for a new line of small precision milling machines, followed by precision drill presses of the same design.

In July 1968 the Schumann family sold both American and German operations to Rockwell Manufacturing Co. The Racine plant became Precise Division of Rockwell, and published at least one catalog, in 1969.

Rockwell sold Precise in Aug. 1975 to H. Campbell Stuckeman, who had just retired as Rockwell's real estate director and was brother-in-law of Rockwell's chairman. The new company was named The Precise Corp. In Jan. 2006, Stuckeman's family sold Precise to a Swiss company, Fischer AG Prazisionsspindeln. Both companies made machine tool spindles.

Information Sources

• The Journal Times, May 9, 1945, Pg. 1, 19.
• The Journal Times, Sep. 18 1956, Pg. 12.
• The Journal Times, Jul. 28, 1968, Pg. 44.
• The Journal Times, Aug. 24, 1975, Pg. 19.
• The Journal Times, Jan. 18, 2006, web edition.
• Ancestry.com genealogy records.
• History and machine information can be found at Tony Griffith's Lathe web site.