LASHER TOOLS
Sound System in Germiston

Lasher Tools is not only the leading manufacturer and supplier of quality hand tools in the Gardening, DIY, Agriculture, Construction and Mining Industries in South Africa, but we are also the only local manufacturer of hand tools. Lasher’s Mission: Servicing Africa and the World with a branded range of quality hand tools. Our Vision: To see a range of Lasher tools in all leading retail stores country wide. Lasher Tools’ commitment to superior product is clearly reflected in standards of quality that competitors struggle or simply fail to match! It was a firm of mining engineers, Blane & Co. Ltd., which founded African Shovel in 1928 with a factory in Barlow Street, Germiston. Shovels were followed by picks, spades forks and other garden and mining tools and the workforce, in those days, had a core of men from Sheffield, England. Sixty-four people were on the payroll by the early 1930’s. Steel was imported from England until Iscor material became available in 1939 and ash handles were also imported until experiments with local timber proved successful. The Second World War produced supply problems of course and local materials had to be used almost exclusively, although it had been company policy to use local material wherever possible from the beginning. In 1971, the Norton Group took a controlling interest in African Shovel Co. and the name was changed to Lasher Tools. The task of removing rock and rubble with shovels was known as lashing and the Scottish miners who came to South Africa at the turn of the last century, were known as Lashers. Growth from this period demanded new factory premises, which were built in Ladysmith. With home markets firmly established in mining, building and construction, agriculture and forestry and the DIY market, exports have been an important part of growing the business for the past twenty-five years. Today, some fifteen percent of production goes overseas; UK, Europe, the Americas, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Africa and Indian Ocean Islands. In 1989, Ussher Inventions, Lasher Tools’ biggest competititor, bought out Lasher Tools making Lasher Tools the largest manufacture of non-mechanical tools in Africa. Ussher Inventions can also boast of a very long and proud history having been founded in They manufactured the first South African wheelbarrow in In the forging shop raw billets of steel are fashioned, red hot, into picks and mattocks. Shovels, spades and wheelbarrows are sheared and pressed from sheet steel. The finishing shop puts it all together with finishes of either bitumen, lacquer or power coating. Apart from the more obvious varieties such as round-nose and square-mouth blades, there are types for firing steam locomotives, cleaning ash from industrial boilers, solid socket shovels, and pit pan shovels. Specialised products are also made for customers, with close attention being paid to client relations for ultimate satisfaction. Lasher’s aspiration for the future is to continue with its mission statement of servicing Africa and the world with a branded range of quality hand tools. As long as there are buildings to erect, roads to build, fields to sow and hoe, mines to mine and gardens to grow, we will continue to manufacture tough, reliable tools.