Hendrick Manufacturing Company
Encyclopedia
Hendrick Manufacturing Company is an American
perforated metal
manufacturer founded in 1876 in Carbondale, Pennsylvania
, where it is still based. Over the years, additional manufacturing
locations were established in California, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. Plants in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Illinois are still in operation.
in his native Michigan
. He served a tour of duty as a US Pony Express
mail carrier in Iowa
. He also practiced his craft as a turner of ornamental wooden porch pillars during the early years of the 19th century before moving east to Franklin, Pennsylvania, in 1850s.
A confidence man from Toronto, Canada, sold Eli a formula for the manufacture of oil for the then-considerable sum of $10. The formula turned out to be worthless, but it sparked Mr. Hendrick’s interest in the refining of oil
. Eli quickly developed a very worthwhile formula and process of his own, producing quality lubricating products
mainly for the railroads. So was born the Hendrick Company.
Sensing that a refinery would be most profitable if it were located near its customers, Mr. Hendrick relocated his refinery to Carbondale in 1860 in order to be near several large railroads.
For the next dozen years, the company flourished, developing such new products as “Galena Signal Oil,” an extra-fine kerosene
for railway lighting. The company also developed “Plumboleum”, a gear box lubricant that remained a basic ingredient of automotive lubricants for 75 years.
The filter press
es used in the refining process consisted of mats of woven wire
and canvas
. In constant use, the wire eventually was abraded to the point where it pierced the canvas, reducing the efficiency of the filter. Mr. Hendrick reasoned that a metal sheet, properly perforated, could replace the canvas-and-wire filter, giving it a longer life. Several tries at drilling holes, first individually, then in a multiple drill-press proved that the concept was sound, but the production process was too costly. He then conceived the idea of punching holes simultaneously in the sheet metal. The metal-punching machine he developed was a pilot for the modern perforating press and the foundation upon which Hendrick Manufacturing Company was started in 1876.
Over the next 100 years, the company steadily expanded its technology and its product lines, branching out from the original oil and coal industries into aggregate
, iron, steel, paper
, material handling
, construction and other industries where perforated or slotted sheets of material are required.
’s growing agricultural industry. These items were produced on throat presses using tooling limited to 6” lengths. In order to penetrate additional markets, Cal-Perf purchased stock-size sheets and light plates that were perforated on multi-punch, all-across presses operated by the Eastern and Mid-Western perforators at the time. Cal-Perf stocked these sheets for resale in its San Francisco warehouse.
Hendrick Manufacturing Company purchased California Perforating Screen Company in 1966 and moved the operation into a larger facility. This larger plant could accommodate additional throat presses and supporting equipment such as shear
s, straightening rolls, press brakes and bending rolls. Three new, multi-punch, all-across presses were added to product custom perforated sheets that were being purchased at the time from Hendrick's Carbondale plant. Under Hendrick ownership, Cal-Perf grew from an office manager and four plant operators to a total of 23 employees.
When the lease on the San Francisco facility expired in 1982, Hendrick moved the Cal-Perf operations to Visalia, California
, in order to be closer to the Los Angeles
market. At the same time, in order to gain warehouse space and a sales office, Hendrick purchased Berglund Perforated Metal in Los Angeles. In 1985, at the termination of the purchase agreement, Hendrick merged the operations of Berglund into Cal-Perf.
. This demand was created when the US supply of profile screens from Germany
were cut off. At that time, Hendrick was asked to furnish perforated u-clips to the Wedge Bar Screen Corporation, a small manufacturer of profile screens located in Queens, New York.
In 1943, Fred Goldbeck joined the sales force in Hendrick's New York office. Goldbeck was very knowledgeable in the use of profile screens. The sales department grew rapidly in 1945-1946 as he spearheaded the efforts to manufacture complete profile screens for the coal, mining and paper industries.
The market for screens increased rapidly after World War II. Hendrick Manufacturing Company began to import fine wire screens from Aumeca, a Belgian firm. In 1953, Greening, a company located in England was selected to supply wedge wire screens for Hendrick. Greening introduced a series of mini-wedge wire screens and Hendrick abandoned the Aumeca screens from that point forward.
In 1969, Hendrick employed Leon Bixby to serve as product manager for profile screens. Bixby’s father had previously worked in design and development of profile screens for the Wedge Wire Screen Corporation of Wellington, Ohio
, which had been started by his father. Bixby brought new success to the profile screen business for Hendrick. In the early 1970s, he convinced ownership that profile screens would always be considered a secondary product as long as they were manufactured in Carbondale alongside the far more popular perforated metal products. Because the largest market for profile screens was the coal industry that was growing rapidly in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, Hendrick chose Owensboro, Kentucky
, for the site of the Hendrick Screen Company. This was a separate incorporation
which opened up in a brand new facility in 1974.
Since then, Hendrick Screen Company has expanded into other markets such as wastewater treatment
, water intake, petrochemical
, dewatering
, and architectural.
to evaluate demand for perforated metal in the nine states of the southeastern United States
. The study supported the idea of a satellite location. Unfortunately, Hendrick did not move on this information quickly and the competition opened plants in the Southeast during the late 1970s.
In 1984, Hendrick conducted a site survey and determined that Memphis, Tennessee
, was a good location to service the southeast and still be competitively located to service the Midwest. A new plant was opened with three 36” wide high-speed, all-across perforating presses relocated from the Carbondale plant. These presses were selected to supply a full range of light gauge, small hole perforations in materials up to 18 gauge thickness. The associated equipment was installed and operations began in September 1984.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
perforated metal
Perforated metal
Perforated metal, also known as perforated sheet, stamping plates, or perforated screen, is made through the metal stamping and sheet metal manufacturing process. Sheet metal materials include steel, aluminium, stainless steel, bronze, brass, titanium, and so on.Perforated materials are very...
manufacturer founded in 1876 in Carbondale, Pennsylvania
Carbondale, Pennsylvania
Carbondale is a city in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carbondale is located approximately 15 miles due northeast of the city of Scranton in Northeastern Pennsylvania...
, where it is still based. Over the years, additional manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
locations were established in California, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. Plants in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Illinois are still in operation.
Eli Hendrick
Born in 1832, Eli Hendrick apprenticed as a wood turnerWoodturning
Woodturning is a form of woodworking that is used to create wooden objects on a lathe . Woodturning differs from most other forms of woodworking in that the wood is moving while a stationary tool is used to cut and shape it...
in his native Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. He served a tour of duty as a US Pony Express
Pony Express
The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
mail carrier in Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. He also practiced his craft as a turner of ornamental wooden porch pillars during the early years of the 19th century before moving east to Franklin, Pennsylvania, in 1850s.
A confidence man from Toronto, Canada, sold Eli a formula for the manufacture of oil for the then-considerable sum of $10. The formula turned out to be worthless, but it sparked Mr. Hendrick’s interest in the refining of oil
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
. Eli quickly developed a very worthwhile formula and process of his own, producing quality lubricating products
Lubricant
A lubricant is a substance introduced to reduce friction between moving surfaces. It may also have the function of transporting foreign particles and of distributing heat...
mainly for the railroads. So was born the Hendrick Company.
Sensing that a refinery would be most profitable if it were located near its customers, Mr. Hendrick relocated his refinery to Carbondale in 1860 in order to be near several large railroads.
For the next dozen years, the company flourished, developing such new products as “Galena Signal Oil,” an extra-fine kerosene
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...
for railway lighting. The company also developed “Plumboleum”, a gear box lubricant that remained a basic ingredient of automotive lubricants for 75 years.
The filter press
Filter press
Filter press which describes the style of filters developed from the 19th century onwards originally for clay. The majority of today's filters are more correctly called "chamber filter press", "Membrane filter press", or "Membrane Plate Filter"...
es used in the refining process consisted of mats of woven wire
Wire
A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, flexible strand or rod of metal. Wires are used to bear mechanical loads and to carry electricity and telecommunications signals. Wire is commonly formed by drawing the metal through a hole in a die or draw plate. Standard sizes are determined by various...
and canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
. In constant use, the wire eventually was abraded to the point where it pierced the canvas, reducing the efficiency of the filter. Mr. Hendrick reasoned that a metal sheet, properly perforated, could replace the canvas-and-wire filter, giving it a longer life. Several tries at drilling holes, first individually, then in a multiple drill-press proved that the concept was sound, but the production process was too costly. He then conceived the idea of punching holes simultaneously in the sheet metal. The metal-punching machine he developed was a pilot for the modern perforating press and the foundation upon which Hendrick Manufacturing Company was started in 1876.
Over the next 100 years, the company steadily expanded its technology and its product lines, branching out from the original oil and coal industries into aggregate
Construction Aggregate
Construction aggregate, or simply "aggregate", is a broad category of coarse particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are the most mined material in the world...
, iron, steel, paper
Papermaking
Papermaking is the process of making paper, a substance which is used universally today for writing and packaging.In papermaking a dilute suspension of fibres in water is drained through a screen, so that a mat of randomly interwoven fibres is laid down. Water is removed from this mat of fibres by...
, material handling
Material handling
-Material Handling Industry:Material Handling is the movement, storage, control and protection of materials, goods and products throughout the process of manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal. The focus is on the methods, mechanical equipment, systems and related controls used to...
, construction and other industries where perforated or slotted sheets of material are required.
California Perforating Company
In 1884, California Perforating Screen Company (Cal-Perf) was founded by the Wagner family to manufacture hammer mill and grain-cleaning screens for CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
’s growing agricultural industry. These items were produced on throat presses using tooling limited to 6” lengths. In order to penetrate additional markets, Cal-Perf purchased stock-size sheets and light plates that were perforated on multi-punch, all-across presses operated by the Eastern and Mid-Western perforators at the time. Cal-Perf stocked these sheets for resale in its San Francisco warehouse.
Hendrick Manufacturing Company purchased California Perforating Screen Company in 1966 and moved the operation into a larger facility. This larger plant could accommodate additional throat presses and supporting equipment such as shear
Shear (sheet metal)
-Bench shear:A bench shear, also known as a lever shear, is a bench mounted shear with a compound mechanism to increase the mechanical advantage. It is usually used for cutting rough shapes out of medium sized pieces of sheet metal, but cannot do delicate work. For the small shear, it mostly...
s, straightening rolls, press brakes and bending rolls. Three new, multi-punch, all-across presses were added to product custom perforated sheets that were being purchased at the time from Hendrick's Carbondale plant. Under Hendrick ownership, Cal-Perf grew from an office manager and four plant operators to a total of 23 employees.
When the lease on the San Francisco facility expired in 1982, Hendrick moved the Cal-Perf operations to Visalia, California
Visalia, California
Visalia is a Central California city situated in the heart of California’s agricultural San Joaquin Valley, approximately southeast of San Francisco and north of Los Angeles...
, in order to be closer to the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
market. At the same time, in order to gain warehouse space and a sales office, Hendrick purchased Berglund Perforated Metal in Los Angeles. In 1985, at the termination of the purchase agreement, Hendrick merged the operations of Berglund into Cal-Perf.
Profile screens
Hendrick Manufacturing Company first entered the profile screen market in the early days of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. This demand was created when the US supply of profile screens from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
were cut off. At that time, Hendrick was asked to furnish perforated u-clips to the Wedge Bar Screen Corporation, a small manufacturer of profile screens located in Queens, New York.
In 1943, Fred Goldbeck joined the sales force in Hendrick's New York office. Goldbeck was very knowledgeable in the use of profile screens. The sales department grew rapidly in 1945-1946 as he spearheaded the efforts to manufacture complete profile screens for the coal, mining and paper industries.
The market for screens increased rapidly after World War II. Hendrick Manufacturing Company began to import fine wire screens from Aumeca, a Belgian firm. In 1953, Greening, a company located in England was selected to supply wedge wire screens for Hendrick. Greening introduced a series of mini-wedge wire screens and Hendrick abandoned the Aumeca screens from that point forward.
In 1969, Hendrick employed Leon Bixby to serve as product manager for profile screens. Bixby’s father had previously worked in design and development of profile screens for the Wedge Wire Screen Corporation of Wellington, Ohio
Wellington, Ohio
Wellington is a village in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The population was 4,511 at the 2000 census.-History:Wellington was settled in 1818 by Ephraim Wilcox, Charles Sweet, William T. Welling, John Clifford, and Joseph Wilson from the states of Massachusetts and New York...
, which had been started by his father. Bixby brought new success to the profile screen business for Hendrick. In the early 1970s, he convinced ownership that profile screens would always be considered a secondary product as long as they were manufactured in Carbondale alongside the far more popular perforated metal products. Because the largest market for profile screens was the coal industry that was growing rapidly in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, Hendrick chose Owensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro is the fourth largest city by population in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is the county seat of Daviess County. It is located on U.S. Route 60 about southeast of Evansville, Indiana, and is the principal city of the Owensboro, Kentucky, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's...
, for the site of the Hendrick Screen Company. This was a separate incorporation
Incorporation (business)
Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation . The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organisation, sports club, or a government of a new city or town...
which opened up in a brand new facility in 1974.
Since then, Hendrick Screen Company has expanded into other markets such as wastewater treatment
Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater treatment may refer to:* Sewage treatment* Industrial wastewater treatment...
, water intake, petrochemical
Petrochemical
Petrochemicals are chemical products derived from petroleum. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as corn or sugar cane....
, dewatering
Dewatering
Dewatering is the removal of water from solid material or soil by wet classification, centrifugation, filtration, or similar solid-liquid separation processes, such as removal of residual liquid from a filter cake by a filter press as part of various industrial processes.Construction dewatering,...
, and architectural.
Tennessee Perforating
In 1971, Hendrick Manufacturing Company commissioned the Georgia Institute of TechnologyGeorgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
to evaluate demand for perforated metal in the nine states of the southeastern United States
Southeastern United States
The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America....
. The study supported the idea of a satellite location. Unfortunately, Hendrick did not move on this information quickly and the competition opened plants in the Southeast during the late 1970s.
In 1984, Hendrick conducted a site survey and determined that Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, was a good location to service the southeast and still be competitively located to service the Midwest. A new plant was opened with three 36” wide high-speed, all-across perforating presses relocated from the Carbondale plant. These presses were selected to supply a full range of light gauge, small hole perforations in materials up to 18 gauge thickness. The associated equipment was installed and operations began in September 1984.
Sources
- Hendrick drawings in the Smithsonian
- Invoice from 1894
- Development of deburring machine
- Metalworking Fluids by Jerry Byers, ISBN 978-0824792015, 1994
- Plumboluem