Excelsior Steel Processing puts its vast array of grinders, polishers and blanking lines to work in Canada, and now the United States, to create fine and custom finished products for a variety of applications.

By Myra Pinkham,
Contributing Editor

• Quick Facts

• Equipment Vendors

Building on a 37-year history of success in Canada, Excelsior Steel Processing Ltd. expanded last year by establishing a subsidiary, Excelsior Steel Processing Inc., in Middletown, Ohio, to take advantage of the large, lucrative U.S. market.

The company was founded in 1967 by William Coward, who had been a stainless steel manager for a service center in Toronto, responsible for buying polished product. William started his own company when he saw that customers needed someone to apply finishes to specialty steels in both Canada and the northeastern United States.

His son, Thomas E. Coward, Excelsior’s current president, says the business started operating from a 5,000-square-foot facility in Toronto, and applied AISI No. 4 finish (a fine finish widely used on food processing and appliance equipment) onto stainless steel sheet. The company soon added enough equipment to form a full polishing line.

Eventually, when the company decided to purchase additional equipment, it relocated to a 45,000-square-foot plant, also in Toronto. Here, Excelsior provides polishing/finishing services for stainless steel sheet and coil, and polishes and finishes other specialty metals, particularly aluminum. It also offers cut-to-length and precision multi-blanking services on a toll basis.

“We do not process any carbon steel, thus avoiding potential cross contamination and resulting risks of corrosion,” Tom Coward says.

The extensive range of finishes available from Excelsior include AISI No. 3, a semi-finished abrasive grit finish; AISI No. 4 finish; and several proprietary finishes that Excelsior has developed over the years, including:

• XL Blend S, a fine-grain satin finish that is repairable in service and during fabrication;
  
• XL Appliance, a cost-effective finish for high-quality appliance exposed applications;
  
• XL Mirror, a directional non-architectural finish for applications where master sheets will be cut into smaller parts;
  
• XL Buff, a directional mirror finish for architectural panel applications;
  
• XL Supreme 8, a non-directional “perfect mirror” finish for architectural panel applications;
  
• XL Suede, a non-directional abrasive grit finish;
  
• XL Hairline, a long-grain reparable coil finish used in a variety of non-critical exposed architectural applications;
  
• XL No. 5, a coarse, directional abrasive-grit finish for aluminum sheet;
  
• XL Buff ‘n’ Brush, a compound finish with customer-specified alternating patterns of mirror and brushed surfaces; and
  
• XL Satin Blend, a custom-designed finish for the highway coach industry.
  

In Toronto, Excelsior operates a 60-inch-wide, four-head Hill Acme wet coil polishing line; a 48-inch Hill Acme four-head wet sheet polish line, and a 60-inch Hill Acme four-head wet sheet polish line. All three have back-pass capability.

Other equipment includes two Hill Acme plate polishing reversing table machines with washing, rinsing, inspection and protective film application capabilities; five polishing/buffing lines; and a Red Bud 60-inch precision multi-blanking/cut-to-length line capable of handling 40-ton coils in thicknesses from 0.018 to 0.135 inches for stainless and 0.024 to 0.164 inches for aluminum.

The Red Bud line has side trim capability and a Herr-Voss cartridge-type leveler with a cartridge maintenance station that opens to allow internal work and backup rolls to be cleaned. Lastly, the Toronto facility houses a 60-inch Rowe cut-to-length line using a six-high Herr-Voss leveler, as well as a Raytec digital tolerance measurement and verification table.

Expanding U.S. presence
Late in 2002, Coward and his team decided to expand their presence in the United States, and invested $11 million in an existing 176,000-square-foot facility in Ohio. The new plant features a custom-built seven-head stainless steel coil polishing line that incorporated equipment from Hill Acme Machine and Herr-Voss Stamco. Excelsior has had longstanding relationships with both vendors, among a few others. Herr-Voss was the turnkey contractor responsible for installing the entire line, which started up last May and reached full commercialization in October.

Coward says Middletown is in the center of the stainless steel industry, considering the number of producers and distributors in the area. The location allows Excelsior to connect to them quickly by rail and highway.

Middletown focuses on processing stainless products, but it is the company’s goal to grow by adding more equipment (perhaps providing cut-to-length service) and to process aluminum and other specialty metals, Coward says.
Size matters

Because Excelsior has had longtime relationships with Herr-Voss and Hill Acme, it just made sense to turn to each with new specifications.

“They were looking to be able to handle 80,000-pound coils of stainless steel, which are very large coils. That led them to us,” recalls Audie Dunbar, sales manager for Herr-Voss. (Other suppliers were also asked to quote the job.)

Excelsior also wanted a line that would handle wider, not just heavier, coils. The new line can polish 62-inch-wide stainless steel up to 0.165 inches thick. “Many stainless steel polishing lines are only able to handle widths of 48 inches,” Dunbar says.

Coward recalls that during the early planning for Middletown, potential customers said they wanted a line that could take material at least 60 inches wide. “A mill can produce a large coil and send it to us for polishing. If need be, we can break it down into smaller sizes that their customers can handle,” he says.

The line has entry- and exit-end crop shears that give the company the ability to break coils into smaller units that service centers and end-users can handle on their own equipment, Dunbar says.

Another advantage of the line is that it has seven polishing heads (five on top and two on the bottom), which allows Excelsior to more aggressively remove imperfections in one pass vs. running coils several times through. “The two bottom-side polishers provide a better underside, or back pass, finish. It creates a better-looking product for many applications, such as range hoods,” Coward says.

The polishing line also pulls 33,000 pounds of tension, which Dunbar says is fairly unusual. The tension serves to provide better finishes to the stainless steel, he explains, as a coil needs to be stretched tight during the polishing procedure.

With this line, Excelsior’s operators can apply protective coatings and inspect product both before and after polishing, Coward adds.
Instilling trust

Excelsior’s goal is to provide the market with a trustworthy source of the highest quality specialty metal processing. “We strive to inspire customer confidence that our finishes and our processing services will meet or exceed expectations,” Coward says, “thereby protecting their investment in inventory.”

Excelsior’s Toronto operations are ISO 9000 certified, and the company is working to have Middletown certified as well.

The Middletown facility has a long road ahead to reach capacity, but Coward says he’s pleased with the ramp-up so far. The equipment installation went well and the company is receiving positive comments from customers about its finished products.

Excelsior will continue to target consumers of polished stainless steels, such as makers of appliances, kitchen and food processing equipment, pharmaceutical equipment, transportation, highway coaches, passenger rail cars, architectural fabrications and other consumer goods.

What helped make the Middletown startup smooth was the company’s familiarity with the equipment and its technology, and its history of success in Canada. “We’ve developed a pretty good reputation, which is carrying forward to Middletown,” Coward says.

Demand could build
Excelsior is operating one shift in Ohio, but has the manpower to add another shift as soon as volumes pick up. Coward cannot predict when that will occur, but he’s confident that increases in demand for specialty products, both in Canada and the U.S., will translate into greater demand for polishing services.

“The appliance industry has introduced more stainless into the kitchen, and that could spin off to other items in the household. There has also been an increase in the amount of stainless used by the automotive industry,” he notes.

As a toll processor, Excelsior is indirectly affected by the recent price hikes in specialty metals. It does feel increased pressure to reduce its lead times to help customers compensate for late mill deliveries and stock shortages.

Due to competitive pressures, Coward adds, “we have not been able to secure adequate compensation in our toll processing charges for increased costs in consumables, labor and energy.”

The company tries to offset that as much as possible by building supportive and consultative relationships with its customer base. “This allows us to be part of the future needs planning between all parties in the supply chain,” Coward explains. “Accordingly, we are able to ensure adequate inventories of specific consumables and protective films and schedule operating levels appropriate to our customers’ needs. This approach allows us to communicate our needs in advance to our suppliers, avoiding the dramatic urgencies resulting from reactive planning.”