Blaw-Knox
From RitchieWiki
Blaw-Knox was a well-known manufacturer of road paving equipment. It is currently a part of Volvo's construction equipment division.
[edit] History
Jacob B. Blaw of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania patented a re-useable steel form to replace wooden forms in constructing concrete sewers and tunnel linings. On March 12, 1906, Blaw Collapsible Steel Centering Company was formed in New Jersey to manufacture and market the product. The firm was renamed the Blaw Steel Centering Company in 1911; according to another source, it became the Blaw Steel Construction Company.
In 1909, Luther Knox and Irvin F. Lehman formed Knox Pressed and Welded Steel Company to produce and market Knox’s innovations in the use of pressed and welded steel, in place of non-ferrous castings, for the manufacture of water-cooled equipment for open hearth furnaces and other high temperature applications.
The Blaw and Knox firms merged on July 6, 1917, forming the Blaw-Knox Company. The company diversified into radio towers in 1927 and, in 1929 through its purchase of AW French & Company, paving equipment. French was manufacturing the Ord line of concrete finishers and related equipment, which became the genesis for Blaw-Knox’s own popular line of form-riding spreaders and finishers. In 1931 Blaw-Knox expanded their line to include form-riding asphalt finishers.
The Ord form-riding asphalt finisher was the first to be adjustable at the forms so the machine could be raised for the laying of multiple layers of pavement without resetting the forms. It also had compression shoes that aided in compaction and eliminated the need for removable form strips.
Blaw-Knox went on to acquire the assets of the Foote Manufacturing Company in 1948. This added dry-batch concrete pavers and the Adnun asphalt paver, which were two of the first self-propelled, formless asphalt pavers introduced to Blaw-Knox’s product line. Issue 66 includes a history of Foote and their concrete mixers and pavers.
The All Purpose Spreader Company, or APSCo, was purchased in 1954. Apsco produced trench rollers and a line of rubber-tired paving equipment, including shoulder spreaders, road wideners and the first rubber-tired asphalt paver.
Blaw-Knox went on to serve the metallurgical, chemical process, public service and heavy construction industries.
Blaw-Know is one of a very few companies to have a town named after it. In 1913 Blaw Steel relocated to Hoboken, Pennsylvania (a small town near Pittsburgh). In 1918 the town was renamed Blawnox, Pennsylvania.
Blaw-Knox itself changed hands at least twice, being acquired by White Consolidated Industries in 1968, and then Clark Equipment Company. Ingersoll-Rand acquired Clark’s construction product lines, including Blaw-Knox, in 1995. Ingersoll-Rand continued to use the Blaw-Knox brand, and placed Blaw-Knox in its Road Development business unit. When Ingersoll-Rand exited the construction equipment industry in 2007, the Road Development unit was sold to Volvo Construction Products.
