Unique Properties
SAXONBURG — When Lora Cooper Saiber was a girl, she and her mother often visited her father at work. They would eat lunch by the large willow tree outside the building.
Today, Saiber is president and general manager of that business, Du-Co Ceramics Co. on Rebecca Street. Her father, Reldon Cooper, co-founded the company in 1949.
Du-Co produces custom-made technical ceramic pieces using materials created by its own formulas.
Saiber said the key to the success of ceramics is the material's resistance to heat.
Along with appliance manufacturers such as General Electric and electrical companies, Boeing is another Du-Co client, using ceramic pieces on airplanes because they can withstand high temperatures.
"Heat is our friend," Saiber said.Du-Co also ships overseas."We ship all over the world," Saiber said.Du-Co is one of a handful of American companies still producing custom ceramics."Domestically, we're one of the few left," Saiber said. "It's been an opportunity for us."Du-Co works with the materials porcelain, alumina, magnesium oxide, cordierite and steatite.Among the parts applications are thermostats, relays, switches, resistors, sockets, ignition systems, ovens, furnaces, fuses and appliances.Du-Co's client base includes those involved in electric heating, specialty lamp and sockets, small and large appliances, temperature measurement and control, and oil and gas ignition.The custom-made pieces range in dimension from barely visible to nearly the size of a fist.Du-Co offers various products that supplant more commonly used ones.The company manufactures Grill Greats, domino-shaped, semi-porous ceramic pieces to be used in lieu of briquettes or lava rocks for gas or electric grills.Du-Co promotes the Grill Greats as providing more evenly radiated heating, eliminating cold spots. Another attribute cited is the Grill Greats' ability to self-clean.After being used, the pieces are turned over for subsequent use. The bottom side will automatically be cleaned while the top is used to heat food, according to Du-Co.
The company also offers the Heat Sheet baking stone for pizza and bread.Du-Co advertises the 13-inch round sheet as being able to cook without burning the crust.One ceramic item Du-Co doesn't make are the trays that carrying some of these pieces into its own furnaces.Since Du-Co's specialty is precision, the company can't waste resources making ceramic trays."It's cheaper to buy them," Saiber said about the trays.Other preheated ceramic pieces feel like clay before being hardened. Such items are often used for tubing.Saiber said one of the reason's for Du-Co's success is having its own full-service die shop.A die is a specialized tool used in manufacturing industries to cut, shape and form components using either a mechanical or hydraulic press.Along with a tool and die shop, Du-Co has development labs and a design engineering department.The parts made undergo one of two forming processes, dry pressing and extrusion.Dry, granulated material, similar to sand, is pressed into a form.Extrusion is done by squeezing wet, claylike material in a closed cavity through a die tool.
The components produced by either forming process then are routed to any number of secondary steps, such as cutting, glazing, grinding and tumbling (a type of polishing done by rotating parts in a drum).All components go through at least one heating process with a specific firing temperature based on the material.Some components are then finished by grinding to achieve tight tolerances and/or tumbling to achieve the required smoothness."This equipment amazes me," Saiber said.The process, which is interspersed with inspections, is completed with final quality inspection procedures.The Saxonburg plant, a 130,000-square-foot building on 15 acres, employs 185 workers.Cooper and John Duke left Saxonburg Ceramics to open Du-Co in 1949 in an abandoned slaughterhouse, using letters from their last names for the new company.The company's first two clients were Carrier, which deals in air conditioners and furnaces, and the Tuttle Co., now known as Tutco, a heating company.Carrier needed a ceramic hook for furnace applications.Another of the company's early jobs was making steam traps for commercial boiler systems, which previously were made from metal."People were burning their hands by touching it," said Tom Arbanas, vice president of sales and engineering.Saiber said the other problem using metal parts is they corrode.In the company's first expansion, it built and moved into a cement block building in 1951. That building has since undergone multiple expansions.The first section of the steel building was erected in 1957 around the de-roofed cement building, which doubled the facility's size.
Additional square footage was added in 1968 by extending the steel building.The current white pillared office building seen from Rebecca Street was built in 1972.A new die shop with wooden block flooring and translucent roofing was constructed with a brick tunnel connecting the front office to manufacturing in 1975.The steel building was again expanded in 1978 and 2001, when a more than 100-foot fiber-lined tunnel kiln was bought from Swindell Dressler in Moon Township to improve production.Du-Co now has nine production furnaces.Along with its facility, Du-Co's product line also has expanded over the years.Ten years ago the company made about 15,000 different parts before increasing to about 18,000 five years ago.Du-Co now manufactures 25,000 different customized component parts. The company also sells basic parts.Customers paying for individualized parts initially pay a tooling charge, giving them ownership of those dies and the rights for parts manufactured from those dies.Du-Co is paid to store, maintain and rebuild the customer-owned tooling as necessary.Arbanas said much of Du-Co's machinery, including some dating back to the company's founding, was developed and built inhouse.
Some dedicated Du-Co employees have been with the company throughout all of its changes.Janet Leary and Darla Dellach, both 40-year veteran employees, inspect preheated pieces to verify there are no cracks.Some pieces are so minute, magnification is required for the check.Saiber said employees can only do magnification work no more than two hours at a time because of the eye strain.Reldon Cooper is still Du-Co's chairman of the board and chief executive officer.Du-Co has come full circle since its inception. The cycle began when Cooper and Duke left Saxonburg Ceramics to start their own company and was completed last year when Du-Co bought out Saxonburg Ceramics' owners.Some of the Saxonburg site's employees made the move to Du-Co."Only a handful applied," Saiber said. "We hired most of the ones who came down."Although the Saxonburg location of the older business was closed, Du-Co maintains its Monroe, N.C., site. The Monroe facility was opened by Saxonburg Ceramics in 1984.The North Carolina plant, which is 80,000 square feet on 21 acres, employs 65 workers.While Du-Co already manufactured many of the same materials as Saxonburg Ceramics, the Monroe plant now gives Du-Co the capability to offer a high purity version of one material: magnesium oxide.Arbanas said Du-Co's line will grow as advancing technology creates more uses for ceramic parts."The future is bright for ceramics materials," he said.Arbanas said Du-Co is looking for new materials to use in ceramics manufacturing.Although Saiber is proud of Du-Co's continuing growth, she does miss one thing absent from the current facility."It was prettier when the willow tree was there," she said.
