This maker was variously known as

• R. B. Rodgers Manufacturing Co. (1928 to 1944 or '45)
• Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co. (1944 or '45 to 1964)
• Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co., Inc. (1964 to at least 1977)
• Rodgers Machinery Sales Corp. (roughly 1966 to 1972)

R. B. Rodgers Manufacturing Co. was established as a proprietorship in 1928. They made swing saws, tablesaws, bandsaws, power hacksaws, and wood shapers, and perhaps other products as well. In about 1939 they began manufacturing a new model of power hacksaw that had been patented that year. By 1955 they had added jointers, radial arm saws, sanders and boring machines to their lineup.

In late 1959 or early 1960 the business was sold to Olympic Machinery Co., which continued to operate it as a division under their corporate umbrella, doing business as R. B. Rogers Manufacturing Co. until 1964 when they incorporated the business as Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co., Inc. That name was used for more than a decade, although thee Rodgers Machinery Sales Corp. name was also used in the early '70s.

Rodgers made a fair variety of machines, with an emphasis on sanders. We have several reports of custom machines from this maker. Their designs show real ingenuity.

Information Sources

• We have reports of machines labeled, Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co., Rodgers Production Machinery, R. B. Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co., and R. B. Rodgers Co. Machines with the first two names were marked Huntington Park, and those with the last three names were marked Los Angeles. A couple of machines that were custom-made by Rodgers did not have any markings at all.
• A horizontal borer labeled Rodgers Production Machinery has the address 2600 Santa Fe, Los Angeles.
• The company shut down its manufacturing plant when the U.S. joined World War II.
• A correspondent reports that Mr. R. B. Rodgers built a horizontal borer for the correspondent's father in 1949; this was one of probably only three such machines. Another correspondent reports, "Rodgers apparently had considerable custom machine design capability, and I saw a large volume of their machinery, some of considerable size and ingenuity."
• We failed to find any patents granted or assigned to R. B. Rodgers
• John Orvis passed along the results of some research done by Reference Services at the County of Los Angeles Public Library including the following:

  Corp Number	Date	Filed Status	Corporation Name
  C0468130	4/1/1964	suspended	RODGERS MACHINERY MFG. CO., INC.
  C0500226	11/18/1965	dissolved	RODGERS MACHINERY SALES CORP.

• Thanks to correspondent Faith Thompson for providing the patent number on a power hacksaw from R. B. Rodgers Manufacturing Co. The patent is dated 1939, which provides a tentative data point for the use of that version of the Rodgers name. The power hacksaw does not appear on our 1955 price list, so it is likely that the hacksaw dates from 1940 through 1954.
• 1985 The Federal Reporter p. 374, in a summary of a personal injury lawsuit.A proprietorship under the Rodgers name began doing business in 1928. In 1959-60, the production equipment of this proprietorship was sold to Olympic Machinery Co., a California corporation. From 1960-64, Olympic ran an operating division under the Rodgers name. In 1964, Olympic incorporated Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co., Inc. (the present defendant Rodgers), also a California corporation. In 1981, this Rodgers corporation was sold to the Coy Corporation, also a California corporation. According to Otto Seeman, a stockholder of Olympic and director of Rodgers Machinery Manufacturing Co., Inc., the model 5 shaper (which was the model Webb was operating when he was injured) was discontinued prior to Olympic's purchase of the Rodgers production equipment in 1959 and thus would have been manufactured by the Rodgers proprietorship...