A friend has offered use of his sandblaster (with walnut shell media of course.) Maybe I’ll run across the holy-grail of metal desks (PDF viewer required). If I find the right piece for the right price I might think about blasting one down to the bare metal, clear-coating it and selling it. So now what? There is no more room (or need) for more tanker desks at the farm, so I may scale back the searching a bit. If anyone wants to part with a copy – drop me a line. Things That Live Forever - Being the story of office equipment from the dawn of thought to the age of art metal. I love the title of the out of print, house volume about the company: Art Metal tankers are among the most popular with the retro/refinished dealers. Here is some early history at Google Books (at ). The usual shot of the manufacturer’s badge It had been disassembled but was not a problem to get back together and cleaned up. After a few weeks I spotted this one and though it was a haul to go and get it, I went the same day. I set up a Craigslist RSS feed to watch for these desks. I was hoping to encounter a single-pedestal model that would fit in the same space as his old desk. With tankers in the lab for both me and Jenny, Tommy was feeling a little left out. If I ever run into something like this at garage sale pricing (as opposed to antique retail) I'm snapping it up quick! Their older oak office pieces however are awesome and talked about quite a bit. Other than the patent information I couldn’t find anything interesting on the web about Y & E’s metal furniture lines. It stores in either the up or down position. This photo shows the typewriter tray raised and out. A picture of the proprietors here.Īnd here it is in place, and it’s a big improvement from the buffet table that I was using for a work surface in The Lab. Some googling shows early history on Y&E here. Y&E lost the case and the patent was invalidated for lack of novelty. I’ve never seen anything quite like it – though apparently the design was the subject of a patent suit.

Spotted at a moving sale by Eagle-Eyes Jenny,this desk has a cool rounded top with stainless corners. Yawman and Erbe Double Pedestal Steel Tanker with Typewriter Lift

Two new steel wonders to report and with them – success on my initial goal of replacing the cheapo laminated MDF desks in the lab with quality (and cool) retro tankers.

Yawman erbe manufacturing rochester ny