Roll
Technology Corporation: Our History
In
1947 Lewis Walker Sr., founder of Roll Technology Corporation, joined
Chromium Corporation of America in Waterbury, Connecticut, following
a distinguished tour of duty commanding submarine chasers in the Pacific
theater. At that time, Chromium Corporation was leading in the development
of hard chromium plated surfaces for industrial applications in the
United States. With a history that goes back to these early stages of
electro-deposited chromium on roll surfaces, Mr. Walker relates to their
first success of achieving .001" TIR and taper with a 16 Ra polished
finish: "We called it a mirror finish and considered it to be as good
as anyone was likely to need."
In the
early 1950's, Mr. Walker became president of U.S. Metal Coatings, a
small roll plating and finishing company in northern New Jersey. Taking
it through two decades of expansion and growth, the company was sold
in 1968. In 1971, Mr. Walker decided to build a new roll plating plant
in the southeastern part of the country and founded Roll Technology
at it's present location in Greenville, South Carolina.
Lew Walker
III, the oldest son of Mr. Walker, joined his father in the family business
after his own tour of duty with the U.S. Navy. Since that time, he has
been intimately involved in Roll Technology's concerted effort to develop
ever improving services, processes and procedures to better serve an
ever expanding customer base. Lew became president in 1986, following
his father's retirement.
During
it's 30 year history, Roll Technology has, indeed, grown:
- from
3 employees to over 40
- from
1 roll grinder to 12 high precision grinders including CNC capability
- from
2 hard chromium plating tanks to 7
- from
8,000 square feet to over 50,000 square feet of production space
Roll Technology
serves customers worldwide, providing the highest available precision
in roll accuracy and state-of-the-art optical mirror finishes. We have
progressed from .001" TIR to .000025" (twenty five millionths) and from
16 Ra to less than 1/4 Ra in surface roughness. We are still working
today to improve our processes.