What's common to Leupold, the renowned makers of rifle scopes, and Buck Knives?
Both companies have been around for about 100 years, and hunting enthusiasts love their products. And many of those products have a Richland connection, thanks to Western Sintering, a powdered metal parts fabricating business based in north Richland.
Western Sintering makes the ring mounts that attach scopes to rifles, and last year it began making metal knife handles, bolsters and guards for Buck products.
For decades, Western's precision engineered parts have helped innumerable manufacturers make a variety of equipment and tools. Its products often are used in automobiles, lawn mowing equipment and anything that's made on an assembly line. The company also makes stainless steel filters used on Ford trucks.
"Filters and gears are our bread and butter," said Bob Rector, chairman of the board.
In the 1970s, Western made parts for IBM's big copying machines, said Rector, adding that the company flourished largely through word of mouth, despite the dearth of assembly line manufacturing in the Pacific Northwest.
Automation has enhanced productivity over the years and helped Western generate annual revenues of about $3 million, said Rector, 64.
"We make twice the product we made when we had about 35 employees," he said. Now, the company has 16 full-time workers.
The company's progress draws much from the vision of Rector's machinist father, John, who started the company in 1965 after years of operating a metal press and sintering operation in the basement of his home on Potter Street in Richland.
John Rector, who learned machining skills as a Boy Scout in a machine shop at the University of Illinois, was fascinated by sintering, a technique that bonds powdered metal through compaction and heating.
His knowledge of sintering helped him earn a name at Hanford when nuclear reactors were being built there to create plutonium for the nation's first atomic bombs.
He helped "ream and hone" holes in the graphite reactor core in less time than top engineers thought was possible, his son said.
John Rector also helped Hanford metallurgists find a way to mix "neutron-catching boron" with aluminum to make the control rods for the B-reactor, his son said, adding that "he saved them at least 10 years in producing the bomb" that ended World War II, quoting a top Hanford manager.
The Rectors' neighbors invested in Western and showed up en masse when two local businesses tried to sabotage the city's sale of land to the company --what is now its current location -- in the mid-'60s, said Rector who began working at home when he was in the fifth grade.
John Rector realized early on that Western would do well to offer value-added in-house secondary engineering services, like drilling and tapping and heat treatment, his son said. At that time, most companies did pressing and sintering but outsourced other processes.
At Western's 40,000-square-foot facility in Richland, employees work on huge presses that push different kinds of metal powder -- mostly stainless steel, steel, copper, brass and bronze alloys -- against specially designed molds with a force of up to 100,000 pounds per square inch, fabricating parts that vary from simple to complex, said Jeff Wood, company president.
Later the metal parts are pushed through an electric furnace that uses nitrogen and hydrogen to allow the metal to bond together, said Dave Morasch, product development manager.
The key is designing and making the mold or the die and punch set, Morasch said. Every part the company makes needs its own die and punch set, which can cost from $3,000 to $30,000 and take up to eight weeks to build, depending on a design's complexity, he said.
The part-making tool is owned by the customers and is used to make the parts they order, Morasch said.
Every part presents unique design challenges, explained Wood, who has worked at the company for about 25 years.
Western does a great job of making the specific tooling for various components required by Warne Manufacturing in Tualatin, Ore. "It's not an easy job to do," said Charlie Lake, president and owner of Warne Manufacturing, which makes scope-mounting systems.
Western helps him keep production costs low, allowing Warne to do well in a niche market, Lake said. Warne has done business with Western for more than 15 years, he said. Some of his employees recently toured its facility.
Wes Door, a Kennewick jeweler for over 50 years, has used Western for decades to get parts for a special tool he uses to set diamonds and precious stones on rings. On average, he buys about 1,000 parts a year, Door said.
Western could have easily moved elsewhere to find more customers, said Gary White, director of business retention and expansion at Tri-City Development Council. But it didn't, and that says a lot about the company's commitment to the Tri-Cities, he said.
It has survived an onslaught of Chinese competition, he said, and that's commendable.
Some American manufacturers who set up shop in China have returned to Western to get help to make certain parts, Morasch said.
The company has increased productivity by using robots and an automatic furnace that can operate without human supervision, said Morasch, a 12-year employee with a degree in industrial technology.
The robotic arm picks up fragile parts and places them on trays quickly without bending or breaking them, he said. The automatic furnace runs 24/7, loading and unloading manufactured parts. It can call for help if it senses a problem. This has reduced labor costs and increased productivity, Morasch said. And waste hot water from the furnace is used to heat one of the company's three buildings.
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