Etablished in 1905, by 1912 the Imperial Brass Manufacturing Co. was manufacturing mechanical lubricators. By the 1930s they were making a line of hand tools for working with tubing—flaring tools, benders, cutters, etc. Note that these hand tools are outside the scope of this Vintage Machinery website. But if you are interested in those hand tools, you might want to look at the Patents tab, above. In the 1950s, the company made vises for sawing tubing.

In 1961 Imperial Brass was the world's largest maker of tubing tools. That year they were merged with the Eastman Manufacturing Co. of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and the merged entity became Imperial-Eastman Corp. Eastman manufactured hydraulic lines and fittings. In 1996 Imperial-Eastman became a part of Stride Tool, and in 2019 DiversiTech Corporation acquired Stride Tool.

Information Sources

• The Engineering Catalogues of Power-Plant Equipment , 1912, pgs. 313
• 1932 issue of Poor's Cumulative Service (Volume 2 page 356): "IMPERIAL BRASS MFG. CO. Acquires Patent Rights. - Co. announces it has purchased the patent rights and entire lines of precision tubing cutters, flaring, and reseating tools and tube benders formerly manufactured by C. M. Smillie & Co., Detroit. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 12, 1932, p. 23."
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• 1932-05-28 Domestic Engineering, page 61.

  Imperial Brass Mfg Co. Acquires C. M. Smillie & Co.

  The Imperial Brass Mfg. Co., Chicago, Ill., has purchased the patent rights and entire line of precision tubing cutters, flaring and reseating tools and tube benders formerly manufactured by C. M. Smillie & Co., Detroit, Mich.

  The Imperial company was recently awarded the contract for the building of the sanitary equipment to be used on the new Navy airship, the Macon ZRS-5. The Macon is a sister ship of the Akron, the world's largest dirigible. The Imperial Brass Mfg. Co. also furnished the sanitary equipment for the Akron.

• 1961 Industrial Heating (v. 28 issues 1-6, p. 336).

  Imperial-Eastman Corp. Formed From Merger—Imperial Brass Mfg. Co., Niles, Ill., and Eastman Mfg. Co., Manitowoc, Wisc., have been merged to form the Imperial-Eastman Corp. Imperial, founded in 1905, is a leading manufacturer of tube fittings, valves, driers, liquid indicators, and is the world's largest manufacturer of tubing tools. Eastman, founded in 1914, is well-known for its flexible and rigid hydraulic lines and fittings.

• The history page of the Imperial-Eastman website says "1996 Stride Tool acquires the tool and accessory division of Imperial Eastman (formerly Imperial Brass) located in Niles, Illinois.... 2019 DiversiTech Corporation purchases Stride Tool and the Imperial brand, strengthening their expansive tool offering for HVACR technicians."
• Details are sketchy but a web search reveals the existence of the Imperial Eastman Acquisition Corp., Amherst, NY, in existence by 1997 and a subsidiary of Dayco Products Inc.