The secret of how to build a bouncier ball may lie hidden in a small factory on Grandview Court, a small cul-de-sac off of Peck Lane in Cheshire’s main industrial zone.
Well, hidden no more: It’s urethane. Or to put it in the words of Harkness Industries President Robert Williams, “It’s like plastic, only better.”
As he explains, he bounces two similar-looking balls — the kind you’d buy for your kids in a grocery store gumball machine — against the floor. The plastic ball barely bounces. The urethane one jumps back over his head.
The 80-employee manufacturer specializes in making things out of urethane, a solid that looks indistinguishable from plastic, but feels and acts more like rubber. It transfers energy much better, hence the extra bounce.
That unique quality makes it useful in a whole range of commercial and industrial products.
Harkness can make wheels for inline skates, for instance. Or it can use it in mail sorting machines, because it bends and so can move uneven size packages along a conveyer.
It’s also used in parts for the aerospace and defense industries where durable, springy materials are needed in devices such as torpedoes, which shoot out of submarines.
Speaking of rushing out in a hurry, have you ever been lost in a big building and wanted to find you’re way out? Chances are, your eyes drifted to the ceiling to look for a brightly lit “EXIT” sign. Well a neighbor of Harkness makes those.
The company is called Kinamor Inc., and it’s a 20-person shop that specializes in making safety and exit sign components. It also produces decorated aluminum, steel and plastic signs.
They could even make signs that point to the bathroom.
If you’re stopping off there, look under the sink, and you may even see some brass or nickel plumbing pipes. It’s the type of thing made by another company on Grandview, McGuire Manufacturing Co.
McGuire, which employs more than 80 people, makes the tubing and other products that most end-users see often, but think little of: Urinal strainers, beaded chains used in toilets and other plumbing supplies as well.
Glamorous they may not be, but plumbing supplies and exit signs have proved to be sustainable business for these manufacturers.
McGuire has been around 50 years. Kinamor has been around nearly 30.
Kenneth J. St. Onge is associate editor of the Hartford Business Journal.
