Six to ten men were employed in the factory initially.

A draw press capable of turning out about 15 kinds of utensils was ordered from Brooklyn, New York, and 3,000 pounds of aluminum from a firm in Pennsylvania.

The founders rented an old button factory on the west bank of the Milwaukee River for $8.50 a month and three weeks later had a lathe, shaper, and drill press in place. They immediately began work on the tools and dies needed by West Bend. The other two, Carl and Bob Wentorf, were skilled tool-and-die makers who had been working for an aluminum cookware company but had been threatened with dismissal because a third brother had left the firm to join another Wisconsin aluminum cookware company. Five of the seven founders were businessmen. Impressed by the growth of aluminum novelty and cookware companies in eastern Wisconsin, he recruited six other men who, with himself, each put down $1,000 to incorporate the West Bend Aluminum Co. Ziegler, a local entrepreneurial dynamo who had organized his own full-fledged fire-insurance company while still in high school, set out to find a substitute industry for the townspeople. When a pocketbook manufacturing company burned down in 1911, many residents of West Bend, Wisconsin, were thrown out of work. In the mid-1990s it ranked among the top five small-appliance manufacturers in the United States. Its appliances include breadmakers, electric skillets, slows cookers, woks, corn poppers, beverage makers, and electronic timers, primarily under the West Bend trademark. is a major manufacturer of small electric appliances, water-purification systems, and high-quality stainless-steel cookware. SICs: 3634 Electric Housewares and Fans 3914 Silverware, Plated Ware and Stainless Steel Ware Incorporated: 1911 as the West Bend Aluminum Co. Replace cover and turn it one-quarter turn to secure.Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Premark International, Inc. If your timer has a slotted button-style cover: turn the cover one-quarter turn with a coin or screwdriver.Replace cover by positioning tabs into slots and sliding cover in place. If your timer has a slide-style cover: slide cover off in direction of arrows.Remove the battery cover located on the back side of the timer. To change back, press and hold down Start/Stop button until beep sounds. Press and hold down Start/Stop button until beep sounds, about 3 seconds.(Be sure time of day has been programmed into clock). To alternate between these formats, follow these steps. Some of our Timers offer both 12 (am/pm) and 24 (military) hour time formats. How do I change the display from military time? If error is made in setting clock, simply hold CLOCK button down until digits flash in display and start over. Press CLOCK button to activate clock with programmed time.Set seconds if desired in same manner using the SEC or S button. Press MIN or M button to advance to correct minutes.Press HR or H button to advance to the correct hour of day.Press CLOCK button down for about 5 seconds or until digits flash in display.My timer has a clock function, how do I set it? Loudness of timer is preset and cannot be changed. To advance time without beeps, hold button down until desired time is reached. The beeping will occur every time the button is pushed. Can I set my timer without having it beep every time I push the button? The majority of our times use AAA battery(s) - if your timer is older and uses a button type battery, it is a G-13 button cell battery. Timers What kind of battery does my timer use?

Westbend kitchen timer