Polyurethane is name of C.U.E.'s game
CRANBERRY TWP — Though the average resident of Butler County or even of the township might not recognize the company's name, they have seen its products in a wide variety of uses — especially this past winter.
Many road department salt spreaders use polyurethane wheels to dispense salt on the county roads. These wheels are manufactured by C.U.E. in Cranberry.
Polyurethane covers also are used on snow plows to help slow the wear on the metal parts of the plow, which are also manufactured by C.U.E.
The company also manufactures several products for the U.S. military aimed at protecting its multimillion dollar operational equipment and helping keep soldiers safer.
C.U.E. operates out of an 85,000-square-foot headquarters at 11 Leonberg Road that is home to the company's corporate offices as well as its state-of-the-art manufacturing operation that makes cast polyurethane products.
In addition to the Cranberry facility, further urethane molding is done at C.U.E. of WV LLC in Mt. Hope, W.Va.
C.U.E. of W.Va. has an additional 30,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
C.U.E. is one of the largest cast urethane manufacturing facilities in the United States.
Company officials say the continual reinvestment into the company has provided state-of-the-art processing, finishing and quality control equipment, providing excellent economies-of-scale and real value to C.U.E.'s customers.
The two C.U.E. plants combine to process more than 2 million pounds of urethane annually."We have a proud and dedicated workforce. That's the bedrock of any company," said C.U.E. President Joseph Scaletta Jr. of the company's nearly 100 employees. "I'm proud to work with a great group of people."Through a chemical process, the polyurethane is molded at 230 degrees Fahrenheit in casting machines and left to cure.The durable material has many heavy industrial uses to prevent wear and tear on expensive metal parts and components.In the early 1980s, C.U.E. identified the need of highway road maintenance departments to improve the efficiency of their snow and ice control equipment.This led to the development of a range of urethane replacement parts designed to keep plow and spreader equipped trucks on the road instead of in the maintenance shop.First to be developed was an all-urethane spinner disk, followed by the spinner mounting hubs and then plow blades.Next came a series of replacement parts for asphalt paving and construction equipment, including track pads and shoes and the product name "Dura-Trax," a major C.U.E. product line, was born.Unlike their metal counterparts, the urethane products will not rust or corrode and are resistant to the abrasiveness of salt, sand and other road treatment materials, Scaletta said.C.U.E. provides polyurethane covers for the U.S. military to protect helicopter rotors from abrasive materials such as the sands in Iraq.It also makes "force fins," which are heavy-duty scuba fins used by Navy SEALS.For the past several years, the company has been working with the military to design additional protection for soldiers from improvised explosive devices. Such bombs have proven deadly against U.S. troops in Iraq.
Aside from protecting U.S. servicemen and women, the company, Scaletta said, is a world leader in urethane anvil cover production, which is a major component when making a box in the corrugated paper industry.C.U.E. was the first molder to manufacture a urethane anvil cover, he said.The company's urethane materials and processing create products specifically designed for the applications of the corrugated industry.C.U.E. products also are used in the coal, oil and natural gas industries to prevent wear on drilling parts."They're chewing up a consumable part rather than the metal," said Scaletta, with many of the urethane parts designed to fit over the expensive mechanical parts.C.U.E. not only manufactures its own products, it works with outside firms looking for a specific urethane product to meet their needs.Scaletta said the company has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies to handle polyurethane solutions and build company-specific molds.The array of industries the company was worked with includes many in recreational uses such as billiards, bowling and even athletic footwear.
