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Here's the story! I Need Your Help. What Every Bodyman Needs to Know... Your Designs Are Copyrighted. So Are Mine. The first thing you need to know is that according to lawyers and the law when you customize a car you are creating a design copyright whether you file for the copyright or not. Like a sculptor, you hold a design copyright on a unique hood, a creative grill design or special tail light treatment. Bodymen are artists and our art is protected by powerful copyright laws. Creating an aesthetically unique design that bears no relation to function gives you a design copyright on that design. No one can legally create what they call a "derivative work" (a copy). Even taking a photo of your unique design requires a written copyright release from you. Get the details from a copyright lawyer. 
In 1963, I designed the unique, original, ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander. You know the design... the sleek design, straight-line dual piston, long shoe air sander. Not the boxy competitors. Mine was the artfully designed, aerodynamic, red and black version that everyone copied when the patent ran out in 1982. I personally hold the design copyright to the unique look and shape of the now historic Viking Dual Filer/Sander. It became an American Legend for it's design and durability. In fact, it will soon be in the Smithsonian. At 79 years of age my design copyright is still in force and will remain in force for at least another 50-years. NO COMPANY HAS EVERY RECEIVED MY COPYRIGHT RELEASE OR LICENSE TO COPY THE AESTHETIC DESIGN OF MY TOOL. EVER. As bodymen, our designs are our reputations, our livelihoods and our artistic expression. The big boys would have to license your unique grill design before they could incorporate that artistic expression in a production vehicle. The same is true of my tool design, it was and is my design protected by my international design copyright. It is the American original. FOR 28 YEARS - THEY STOLE MY DESIGN - THEY STOLE MY REPUTATION AND STOLE MY LIVELIHOOD! What they did starting in 1982 was un-American... well it was. When they started copying my ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander design, they copied the look of the Viking exactly. They didn't copy the boxy versions. They copied my original Viking Dual to capture the huge market and reputation our ATCOA Viking Dual had built over 17 years. We built a distinctive tool by bodymen for bodymen. It was a tool bodymen could depend on. They copied it to trick you into believing you were getting the original tool, the same quality and they used my unique design without permission to do it. Over time, they cut corners, removed what they didn't understand, changed specifications, but they kept my aesthetic design. Why? Did they think they could trick us? They kept taking your hard earned money for tools that were NOT ATCOA built. They cut the price and changed the guts until all they were selling and ruining was my unique design and reputation. As a bodyman, I know how hard you work for your money, ATCOA has always respected bodymen because that's who we are. We know that the quality of our tools speak to the quality of the work we produce. I know how much you depend on our ATCOA Straight-line Filer/Sander. I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP. ONLY YOU CAN STOP THE THEFT BY MAKING SURE YOU ONLY PUT A REAL ATCOA IN YOUR TOOL BOX. The Original ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander is back. Built to my original standards, only improved to enhance durability and performance. ATCOA is an American tradition and part of collision repair history. It is the heart of custom car artistry. It is the production tool that gave us an industry where repair not replacement was the most profitable standard. It fed our families and ATCOA stood behind every Viking it ever built. Don't let the thieves steal your history, cheapen your tools and disrespect your traditions. We need your help more than ever to reclaim the Karl Selander design, reclaim our heritage and renew our industry. PLEASE STAND WITH US - ONLY PUT THE REAL ATCOA BACK IN YOUR TOOL BOX. Karl Selander, bodyman, original designer of the ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander and original founder of ATCOA, has received a cease and desist demand regarding the use of the term "Viking", the trade name name he coined, copyrighted and established for his tool in 1963. During the initial 17 years the ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander established a global reputation for durability and quality. The ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sanders were second to none. Many are still running today 47-years later. In 1982, the patent ran out and the industry flooded in to copy the tool and its success. They never considered the design copyright, they didn't have.
The Bible says: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men!" - Rom, 12:18 - With this admonition we have agreed! Since they are not manufacturing the Original ATCOA Viking Dual and their ATCOA looking Sanders are not the same as the original, Legendary ATCOA Viking Duals, it becomes the consumers choice, purchase a better than Original quality tool from ATCOA or another "Me To". Announcement!! We, ATCOA (Air Tool Corp. of America) are not the source or manufacturers of ANY OF THE "CLONES"! They demanded that we cease and desist using the term "Viking" in conjunction with our ATCOA (DELETED) II Straight-line, inline air sander. I, Karl Selander, am the only living Founder of ATCOA, and I own the copyright to the "Birth Certificate", the original blueprint of the ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander, dated August 15, 1963. (See above.) To our knowledge, no other original exists and this was produced under my supervision at Shunk Mfg. Co. in Bucyrus, OH, a company owned by Chromalloy Inc. At that time I was Vice President, Production and Development and undertook the development and production of the original ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander. This document, along with many others, permanently establish the above statements. During my three years in that position with ATCOA I was not on the payroll nor have I received any payment for the time spent performing those services to the Air Tool Corp. of America. Further, I have not given permission for use of our copyright of this design or items contained therein. I personally also hold the design copyright to the unique design of the original ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander. 
PLEASE, LET ME SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT!!!!! The True History of ATCOA and the Viking Dual Sander/Filer I, Karl Selander, do hereby present my credentials to the Auto Body Industry. On Oct. 22 this year I will be 80 years old and the only living Founder of the Air Tool Corporation of America in 1962 located in St. Louis, MO. Posted here is a selection from the myriad of documents, photos, correspondences and business cards I do hereby submit as proof of these claims. Otto Hendrickson was the inventor of the original ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander. His patent number is; 3,214,823, filed May 29, 1962 and issued Nov. 2, 1965, and expired 1982. From the time Otto began to develop this sander he was an employee of Canyon City Auto Body in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County in Southern California, the owner, Karl Selander. My friendship with Otto Hendrickson began in 1956 when I was an adjuster for Allstate Ins. Co. in Pasadena, Calif. He was working at Mead Chevrolet Dealership in Pasadena and our frequent contacts began during those years as I was making my rounds as an adjuster. In 1958 we opened Canyon City Auto Body in Azusa, California and not long after that Otto came by to visit us. In short order he explained that he lived in Azusa and would like to come to work for us. Knowing his talents and qualifications, we hired him on the spot. With this new venture, we ran a tow service and rotated for our share of the local police towing on an every other month basis. This activity kept us up in the wee hours many times and it was our habit to arrive at the shop around 6 AM and begin setting up for the day’s activities. Otto, living nearby, would frequently show up in those early hours to work on his projects of various and sundry inventions. We gave him a set of keys to use the shop equipment in off hours. Otto’s skills were incredible, he asked if he could take a scrap Cadillac grille for one of his projects which he melted down for a sand casting. One morning, in mid 1961, I arrived at the shop and heard an unusual noise coming from the back of the shop. It sounded to me like our compressor was developing a problem and this was not a welcome sound. As I entered the shop, there was Otto in the back with an object in his hands connected to an air hose making this unusual noise. That was an historical moment as I was the second person in the world to hear the unique sound of an eventual ATCOA Viking Sander. THAT WAS WHERE IT ALL STARTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When we left off the last time, hopefully, we cleared up the facts about the origin of the Legendary ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander. It is from where we left off that we are now presenting the "Rest of the Story". As Otto attempted to promote his inline sander invention he traveled several times to the East, talking to major air tool companies in hopes of landing an agreement to license his patent pending for production and marketing. In despair, he turned to me and asked if I would take over that effort and gave me an option on the tool for my use in raising the venture capital to get this incredible new machine into production and create a marketing method. Our guys in the shop were all rooting for Otto to succeed for they all felt it was the best new system for making their strenuous work much easier. Several of the adjusters that frequented our shop also were rooting for Otto and when I entered the project, they all encouraged me along the way. One even took it upon himself, with the help of a nephew, to do a mailing soliciting interest, all to no avail. Racking my brain and jumping at straws I made a call to an old friend who owned a car wash that we used to detail our customers cars for delivery. Roy Brodsky had since sold the car wash and owned a liquor store in South Los Angeles. When I called, I asked if he knew anybody that might be interested in this sort of business proposition. He agreed to check with a few friends and in a couple of days he showed up at our shop with a friend. Roy asked me to put on a demonstration of the tool for his friend, Dave Bressler. We obliged and they drove off without comment. That evening Roy called me at home and reported that Dave liked what he had seen and was ready to invest. Dave was the owner of Beverly Franilla Ice Cream Company in Los Angeles. Roy further said that he did not want to give the project to Dave and that he had some big people in his family in St. Louis and wanted to show it to them. I was instructed to be at his store the next evening to make a call to his cousin’s husband. Each of us on an extension at the store the call was made with a voice answering on the other end I was introduced to Morris Shenker. Two days later, Roy and I flew to St. Louis on Thanksgiving Day and arrived at the home of Mr. Harry Kessler, an old Anheiser Busch mansion. A formal dinner party was in progress and we were introduced around. After a short while we were taken into the parlor of this lavish home and a group of the guest men were assembled to hear our presentation. Fortunately, my gift of gab took over and I explained how the sander worked and the advanced improvements over the existing methods of doing auto body repairs which required intense physical effort while this tool drastically reduced the efforts and time by 75 %. At the end of the demonstration and presentation we were asked to go back to the party. In a short time, Morris Shenker came out of the parlor and told Roy and I "You have a deal!". In that meeting there was a gentleman, Mr. Joe Friedman, the CEO of Chromalloy Corp. and he wanted it for one of their plants in Ohio that needed work. Shunk Mfg. in Bucyrus manufactured railroad gondolas and Caterpillar blades and had fallen on hard times. This sort of production had very liberal, ¼" tolerances while Otto’s air sander required .001- .003 tolerances and from the start we had very serious concerns. With contracts signed, after further negotiations, we headed home with this great news. All of us were on Cloud Nine for a while. In the next week, Otto and I were in Bucyrus and preparing to begin the process of bringing to production his incredible air sander. On the flight home from the meetings in St. Louis, Roy and I arrived at the choice of a name for the new company we had begun and also came up with a name for the sander. Air Tool Corp. of America gave us a good acronym, ATCOA, similar to the popular ALCOA Hour on TV in those days. I guess that is what cinched the choice and since I was of Swedish extraction I suggested the name Viking for the tool and Roy immediately liked it. So it was that this, now legendary, tool came to be the world standard for this new category of air sanders. It was the first straight-line, piston, long stroke, reciprocating air sander. I was commissioned to travel to Bucyrus by Roy Brodsky who had been given the Presidency of ATCOA and I was named Vice President, Production and Development with authority to direct the startup efforts. Otto was very concerned about the choice of the Shunk facility and it’s ability to undertake our precision project. He did agree to let them try and they were very agreeable to work at our directions. Months went by without much progress and as time went on, Otto’s patience was running out. The first efforts to produce satisfactory production models was very disappointing as the units stalled out when we applied 100 lb. sustained air pressure. The plant manager, Mr. Wayne Gillery, was making jokes telling us that the reason the machines were not working when we received them in California was "That California Smog!". Otto nor I were entertained by such cracks and it resulted in a lot of friction between our team and theirs. In Aug. 1963 we had finished the final print of the production version of Otto’s air sander. I have the only known original copy of that finalized print which displayed a sketch of our Logo and the tool name, Viking Dual, that I call the "Birth Certificate" of the ATCOA Viking Dual Filer/Sander. It was a different looking sander from the proto-type Otto had produced and that which was used in the patent drawings. Together, Otto and I worked to "Streamline" the appearance of the sander. At my insistence, we did give the tool a new look but the internal mechanism remained true to his designs. Body materials were removed to decrease the weight of the body and the handle was changed to improve the looks and the trigger was built in from the top of the handle for a more comfortable grip. The front knob was redesigned and weighted to bring the tool into balance and subdue vibration. Unknown to either of us, we were creating a common-law copyright on the aesthetic appearance, logo and Viking Dual name which has been copied by many air tool manufacturers since the patent expired, most have even copied our colors. Neither of us were salaried for our time spent, in fact, I never receive a salary for any of the three years I served as Vice President of Production and Development. Some of our expenses were reimbursed but there were no agreements signed with ATCOA for the rights to our copyright. We had no intention of demanding any payment for our services regarding this new design, as we both were intent on getting the job done. In total, 18 months went by with the Chromalloy efforts without producing a single satisfactory production model. With the assistance of Morris Shenker, we were able to pull away from Shunk and move the whole operation to Culver City, California. Kaye and Miller Machine Co. was chosen as they were a sub-contractor to Douglas Aircraft Co. and within six weeks, we had the finished product built to perfection. When we brought the project to California, I remained in the position of supervising the production activities and took up the work of quality control by inspecting every tool coming off of the assembly line and running it to assure ourselves of the constant uniform quality for each unit. I have many of those inspections sheets which I signed, listed the serial numbers and in some cases gave the first and last numbers as a group. Of those tools we have obtained several of them with the serial numbers that I inspected and tested back there 45+ years ago which still run well without any repairs. For the last couple of years we have bought up a lot of old ATCOA Viking Sanders along with other brands and taken them apart for examination and comparison finding that none of the later tools and other "Knock Off" copies match our original quality and are far more prone to failure with many that are just junk! Our new ATCOA Straight-line II Sanders are equivalent to and better than our original ATCOA Viking Sanders due to advances in technology. Because of this remarkable manufacturing capability we are able to offer a three year warranty and an optional lifetime warranty. If you are looking for quality and endurance, pay a little more and purchase a tool that will last a lifetime!! No body has our guts! When Morris Shenker bought my stock in the Company, it was a friendly departure. I remained a personal friend to him and Roy Brodsky until their deaths. Immediately after my sale of stock to Morris I began consulting with Roy on a daily basis, without pay, as he had no knowledge of the production and development end of the business. I did want them to succeed as they were buying my stock on a note, paying Otto royalties and I considered them as friends. Over the years, Morris had called and asked for assistance with the changes taking place in the Company. Roy had made some very serious mistakes and was subsequently removed by Morris Shenker in 1967. Morris replaced him with David Ludwig who was a CPA from St. Louis. Morris called and asked if I would be available to David with his transition and I assured him that I would, again, without any financial remunerations. Dave, immediately, packed up all of ATCOA’s inventory, equipment and files ( Those that were still left after Roy’s departure as much was missing including the proto-types Otto had made.) and took them to the Allan Air Products plant in St. Louis, MO. On several occasions we later visited that facility when consulting with Mr. Ludwig because in many of the trade shows we attended, Dave asked us to stop by since we had frequent telephone conversations and he wanted me to meet with his plant manager. During the years that followed, RODAC infringed on the Hendrickson patent, due to the Roy Brodsky mishandling, and Ludwig was forced to engage in a legal battle trying to stop them. I was not consulted with regard to those proceedings until ten years had passed and then I received a call from an attorney, Mr. Robert Spensley of Spensley, Horn, Jubitz and Lubitz, a law firm in West Los Angeles representing ATCOA in their fight with Harvey Rodstein of RODAC. Mr. Spensley and I met and I showed him the files I had from my time with ATCOA in the startup of the Company. His comment was; "Where have you been?" and my response was; "Where have YOU been?". With those files, which I loaned to him, they were immediately able to bring RODAC to a shut down. Not long after that, when demonstrating our newly patented Dust Free Finishing System at the Pacific Automotive Show, I noticed Dave standing across the aisle from my demonstration booth and when the demo was finished Dave came over to me and said; "I owe you Karl!" referring to their victory against RODAC. I responded; "You do not owe me Dave, it was the right thing to do!". Sitting down for a cup of coffee, Dave and his secretary, Florence, began bringing me up to date on the progress of the Company. I was surprised at their growth and when Dave mentioned that they were losing market share to the DA sanders I jumped in with an explanation of my new tool. While Dave did not have much insight to the auto body industry and certainly the process of metal finishing I began to tell him how my Dust Free System could make the ATCOA Viking Sander 300% faster than the DA and do a better quality job. He trusted my judgment as we had given him help over the years on the technical issues. When he realized that the reason my demonstrations were so well attended was the dramatic labor saving, non-polluting and recyclable waste represented another innovated, revolutionary product. Dave said, "How can we go about this?" and my suggestion, a knee jerk reaction, was to say that we could put our attachment on the Viking and call it the Super Viking. He agreed to that idea and we shook hands on it. He asked me to come to St. Louis in two weeks and finalize out agreement. Florence was witness to all of this conversation. A week passed and I received a call from Florence saying that Dave had suddenly passed away. She went on to say that she wanted to go ahead with the agreement Dave and I had made. Florence was then running the Company in Dave’s absence. I flew to St. Louis and Florence had her son-in-law video tape a demonstration of the Dust Free System with the intent of preparing an announcement of the Super Viking. Not long after that I received a call from Morris Shenker telling me that his great nephew, Mitchell Shenker, was taking Dave’s place and asked if I would be available to him as a consultant as we had all along. I assured him that I would and told him of the agreement Dave and I had come to, instantly, he told me to tell Mitchell of our plans. I did meet with Mitchell a short time later and he had been advised by Morris to hear me out and that I would be available to him for consultation if he needed help. Mitchell did agree to go ahead with a trial of the Super Viking proposal but only on a localized area in Los Angeles. I had to reject that restriction as we had been advertising in national publications and I thought it was not possible to confine it to L.A. Again, a short time later I joined up with an old friend, Mr. Jack Martin of Covina, CA and he expressed his willingness to abide by Mitchell Shenker’s restrictions. Jack and I went to see Mitchell and the project agreement was consummated. Jack took John Smay, the manufacturer of our Dust Free System, back to meet Mitchell and further discuss the sanding shoe that John had designed for the Viking Sander which was more favorable to the one Otto had designed. Most Viking "look-a-likes" and others are still using John’s sanding shoe design. I was not there and I do not know how things went but I do know that Jack made a large purchase of Viking Sanders which were converted to Super Viking and stored at John’s Dellacor Corp. in South El Monte, CA. Jack and I were not able to make a go of the localized effort and he withdrew from our agreement leaving John with a large supply of the Super Viking units. As I went back on the road selling the Dust Free System, I was able to sell off John’s stock of those tools, a task that took me up through 2000 to sell the final Super Viking using the brochures left behind when Jack Martin left. Jack is my age, 80 and is still available to testify of that agreement with Mitchell Shenker to use the label Super Viking carte blanche. In about 1992 we met with Mitchell Shenker in Las Vegas as we were interested in re-acquiring the company and I was given an Allen Air Products profile of the Company and told it was for sale. I do not remember all of what was discussed but I did attempt to find venture capital for the purchase. I was unable to secure the necessary funds and subsequently heard from Mitchell that it had been sold. The plant was closed that year and it was sold to a Dale Elrod from Indianapolis, IN. Mitchell later told me that the proceeds of the sale were taken by the IRS, due to Shenker’s estate tax problems. In 1994 we were asked to visit the new Viking Air Tool Company in Indianapolis and discuss our Dust Free System. We made a trip to Indianapolis and put on a demonstration of our System and explained that it was designed to attach to the Viking Sander. We explained our Super Viking project and how this feature would enable the Viking to out perform the DA sanders. In short. Mr. Elrod’s sales manager, Randy (last name?) rejected the proposal. Dale Elrod did not express any opinions as he had not been in the air tool business and, like others, did not understand what it was all about. Confused as to why they were not using our original logo and name, Air Tool Corp. of America since those were the identifications of the now global standard and by then the industry was using the word Viking in describing the ATCOA tool. I was told by Randy that it was too old fashioned. A day or two later, I began wondering when our name and logo were changed. A fellow Church Board Member, was a patent attorney and we had him do a search. It came back stating that they both had been abandoned a while back so I immediately applied for the logo re-registration and it was granted. They would not allow protection for the name, Air Tool Corp. of America as it was too generic. This all happened in early 1994 and we began to use the name and logo till the present. Still unaware of our common-law copyrights to the logo, Viking Dual name and the aesthetic design of the original inline Viking Sander. With any created design or lettering a Common-Law Copyright is automatically allowed and is good for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years. That is surely better than a patent since a patent is for 17 years. Microsoft has a copyright on it’s "Windows". In November of 1994, we had a booth in the NACE Show in Las Vegas. On the next aisle over, Viking Air Tools had a booth and while we were entertaining large audiences with our video demonstrations, Dale Elrod came over to our booth and asked me what was going on. I did explain that we had recovered the original name and logo and that we were, in essence, helping them sell tools as our attachment improved the performance of a Viking Sander. From then till now we have continually used the names, logo and designs in our advertising, labels, business cards, videos and website. At no time has there been more than a few weeks, at most, where the entire Company image has not been on display universally on the Internet. In Feb. 1997 we placed a full page ad along with another ad in Body Shop Business magazine, one of two Bibles of the industry. Again in Feb. 1999 we placed a full page ad along with another ad in the same publication. Along the way we have had editorial inserts and still are sending out news releases about our products. In 1999 we posted our website featuring our products and history retaining logs through those eleven years. Now, we have received a "Cease and Desist" letter from a law firm in Cleveland representing the S&H Industries claiming infringement of the use of the word Viking in connection with the promotion of our products. Rather than engaging in an expensive legal battle we have chosen to stop the use of "Viking" in the description of our current products even though we are legally entitled to the use of that name from the beginning in 1962. The Bible says; "As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men!" We do try to follow that admonition! Therefore, we have decided to continue the use of the ATCOA logo, write of our personal history in the creation of the Viking design, development and production as the only living Founder of the original Air Tool Corp. of America and never having given any entity a written permission to use our personal copyrighted designs. Our contribution to the original Company was made, without salary or any payment for our time spent, due to our ownership in the Company and loyalty to Otto Hendrickson and desire for the Company to succeed, however, we do own the copyright and most of the inline piston air sanders today are flagrant copies of our design, even down to our colors, red and black. How Allan Air Products, Inc. claimed to be the "Original" company, owning the patent, as the Viking Air Tool Inc. people now claim, is a complete mystery! The fact is, Allan Air became the outsource manufacturer and never was involved with the original Company till 1967. The name Viking Air Tools, Inc. did not appear on any of ATCOA’s products through the time Dave Ludwig was in charge and our logo was used which is embossed on thousands of Viking Sanders all over the world even after Dave‘s death. When Dave passed away, Morris Shenker had to be the owner of Allan Air Products, Inc. since he appointed Mitchell, his grand nephew, as President of Allan. In the late 80s, Mitchell began to use a triangle indent on the Viking Sander with the stylized "Viking" name and Allan Air Products, Inc. There remains a larger mystery to us, the fact that Morris Shenker had died before the sale of Allan Air Products, Inc. to Dale Elrod and how it was that Mitchell Shenker was entrusted with the authority to sell Allan Air had to be with permission of the Morris Shenker estate since the IRS seized the proceeds of the sale in their claims against Morris Shenker’s estate. How then did Elrod purchase Air Tool Corp. of America after it had been abandoned in the late 80s or early 90s?? It does appear that Mitchell Shenker had registered the "designed name Viking" prior to the sale of Allan Air Products, Inc. By then, Viking had become generic as industry wide, "Identical looking Viking Knock-Offs" were being manufactured by, no less than IR, CP and many others, referred to as Viking sanders. Even today, these aesthetic copies are NOT the original design externally or internally and NONE match our latest production of ATCOA Straight-line II Dual Filer/Sanders!! We often encounter auto body personnel referring to their IR, CP or others Viking Sander. It is our position, with regard to the use of the word Viking in connection with the ATCOA Original Straight-line Piston Air Sander, being unaware of our personal ownership of the Common-law Copyright to our original blue print, which clearly sketches our logo and the words Viking Dual, mfg. by Chromalloy, and failure to enforce our exclusive rights when infringed upon, it is very unlikely that we could prevail with enforcement at this late date. Further, our use of the name Super Viking in 1983 through 2000, our national ads in Body Shop Business in 1997 and 1999 and our website from 1999 till the present implies permissive use! Our personal history is clearly undeniable as a host of witnesses, documents and public disclosures remain as empirical proof of our entitlements. We are grateful to all of our faithful customers and to those who still praise us as the Best in the industry. Just ask any Original ATCOA Viking owner!!! |
