C. H. Besly & Co. was founded by Charles H. Besly and F. N. Gardner in August 1875, to manufacture pattern-making machinery. They are still in business as a maker of cutting tools such as taps, dies, and reamers. Their line included larger disk and drum sanders that might be found in pattern-making shops.

Very early in this company's existence they introduced the first disc sander, which had dual 10-inch discs faced with emery cloth. Larger models soon followed.

In 1905 F. N. Gardner, who had been with Pratt & Whitney Co. before co-founding C. H. Besly & Co. left to form Gardner Machine Co. of Beloit, WI.

In 1936, the company was bought by Welles family and the firm's name was changed to Besly-Welles Corp. in 1952.

Besly-Welles Corp. was sold to Bendix in 1965, and at the time was enlarged with two other Bendix affiliates, the former Threadwell Tap and Die Co. of Greenfield, Mass., and Scully-Jones and Co. of Chicago.

In 1984, the firm's name was changed to the Besly Co.

In 2005, Besly moved all of their manufacturing facilities to Asia.

Information Sources

The founding date comes from the history page of the Besly Co. website.
• Information on this firms introduction of the disc grinder comes from a 1925 article written by F. N. Gardner's son, A Brief History of the Disc Grinder.
• EBay listing for a 30-inch disk sander. Another listing was for a dual 40-inch disk sander.
• EBay listing for an oiler, patented 1888-04-24 and 1892-01-19. We have located the second patent, but could find no close match on the first. The only oiler patent issued on 1888-04-24 was patent 381,804, and the drawing for that bears no resemblance to the oiler in the auction.
• A search for patents from 1920 onward assigned to "Besly" produced 26 patents assigned to this company or its successor, Besly-Wells Corp.
• Charles H. Besly & Co. D Catalogue, 1897 at Archive.org
• More history of this firm at Beloit Daily News, 01 Nov., 2005
• Our list of patents includes some patents that were used by Threadwell Tap & Die Co., manufacturers of taps, dies, broaching sets, etc.