The tools others won't make.
Custom and standard solid carbide cutting tools. Engineered, ground, and inspected in Ashland, Virginia, by the people who trained the industry on the machines that make them.
The founders
Built by the people who trained the industry
Sonic Tools started with two engineers who knew tooling from the machine up.
Scott Staylor and Ludwig Preinesberger came out of Walter Grinders, the company that produces some of the most popular and sought-after machines in the industry today. As an applications engineer, Scott spent years on the road teaching shops how to get the most out of those machines.
Ludwig leveraged his business acumen as a Product Manager at Walter, overseeing the product lifecycle and understanding the industry in ways a consumer data report wouldn’t reveal. Their combined knowledge base, skills, and technical experience balanced one another well, forming the foundation of what is now Sonic Tools.
In 1999, the two built Jabro Tools USA, the North American arm of a Dutch toolmaker, and reproduced much of its product line in the States. While producing Jabro’s tools, they had the unique opportunity to serve as their own R&D department. Novel ideas, creative freedom, and an in-depth understanding of industry pain points led the two to develop new product lines in addition to the Jabro tools they were already producing.
When the parent company was acquired by Seco Tools, they successfully acquired the branch they’d built from the ground up and made it their own. In 2004, with its own product lines market-ready, Sonic Tools opened its doors.
That history still runs the shop today. Engineering and grinding work side by side, and feedback moves straight from the floor to the finished tool. No layers, nothing lost in translation.
What you get
Why shops choose Sonic
Buy direct
Most of what slows a tooling order down is the distance between you and the people who make the tool. We sell direct. You can still order through a distributor if you prefer, but come to us straight and quotes move faster, lead times get shorter, and the engineer who builds your tool is the one you talk to.
The jobs others turn away
A tricky form? A geometry your last supplier wouldn’t quote, or quoted at a lead time that killed the job? Bring it. If you can sketch it, we can make it. We’ve spent over 20 years building the edge cases other manufacturers pass on, because the guys who trained the industry on these machines know what they can be made to do. If you’ve been told it can’t be done, you’re exactly who we built this shop for.
Reground like new, any brand
A worn tool doesn’t have to be replaced at full price. We recondition solid carbide cutting tools from any manufacturer, ours and everyone else’s, on the same machines that grind our new tools for roughly a third of the price. A reground tool comes back to its original geometry and is inspected, not shaved undersize by a shop that can’t hold the diameter.
Quality you can measure
Every tool is built and inspected in-house, stage by stage, against tight tolerances. Shanks are held to a tighter standard than most. Inspection runs on equipment light-years ahead of the standard shop comparator, and a shop engineer works the floor, so a correction happens at the machine rather than three revision cycles later.
Made in Ashland, Virginia
Every Sonic tool is built and inspected under one roof in Ashland. We started this company to put high-performance tooling in the hands of the everyday shop, to help you grow with us instead of pricing you out.
Better tools. Better results.
Industries
Aerospace
Automotive
Biomedical
Firearms
Machining
Microelectronics
