a breakthrough on production dates!

It's been an exciting past couple of weeks here! I'm thrilled to announce a breakthrough in my documentation of the Workmate 79-001—I have broken the code to determine the actual production date of many, if not most, Workmate 79-001's!

You may have seen the 5-digit numbers stamped in ink on the bottom surface of the jaws of the 79-001 Types 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9. They have been the subject of some speculation over the years, with suggestions that they could be some sort of serial number or the like. As far as I know, no one has come up with their actual significance until now.

A few weeks ago I was idly looking at the number on a Workmate and had an inspiration—the pattern of the digits could be seen as a type of date. I started checking my own Workmates as well as my large collection of Workmate photos, and it all clicked into place. Once I had it, it was actually embarrassing that I had not figured it out sooner. These numbers are production codes from the Brockville, Ontario factory that date our Workmates for us!

But First, A Plea for Help------------
I want to add as many Workmate 79-001's as possible to my list of documented dates, in order to narrow down even further the start and end of each Type, as well as the dates when the changes in components happened within certain Types. I need the help of owners to do this. If you have a 79-001 with a readable 5-digit code stamped under the wooden jaws or on the metal footrest, please use my Contact page to send me the code. I will reply with my email and ask you to send one or more photos to document it. Please help with this crowd-sourcing effort to document the Workmate!

Decoding the Date
How does the Brockville production code work?

• The first digit is the year. If the digit is 4 through 9, add 1970 to it. If it is 0 through 2, add 1980 to it. So the example at the top of the page was made in 1977.
• The second and third digits are the week within the year. So the example was made in the 47th week of the year 1977.
• The fourth digit is the day within the week, with 1 being Monday and 6 being Saturday. So the example was made on Friday of the 47th week of 1977, which works out to November 18, 1977.
• The last digit is the work shift at the factory, so the example was made during the second shift.
  (So far, none of the Type 1's documented have this fifth digit. I see two possible explanations. One is that Black & Decker originally didn't think the shift information was useful. However, the one I like better is that they didn't originally intend to have more than one production shift per day,  but the overwhelming demand for the Workmate forced them to!)

Can You Prove This?
So the first logical question is: Since I'm the only one making this claim, why should you believe me? First I'll explain that the reason I was embarrassed not to have figured this out sooner is that I have run across the "YWW" year-week pattern of three digits as a date code from another manufacturer in the past (although I can't recall who it was). Why I did not connect this to the Workmate numbers years ago, I can't explain. So that was the first clue...

...Remainder of discussion moved 12/15/2020...

Note: Originally this blog entry was much longer. By December 15, 2020 I realized that the detailed explanation of the Brockville production codes was much too important to have only in the blog, but required its own standard page on my web site. You can continue reading it at the Brockville Production Codes page.