Hitemco, Old Bethpage, N.Y., completed a 10,000-square-foot expansion to be able to take on more projects that keep the military, commercial, and private aerospace sectors running smoothly. For over 40 years Hitemco, a family-owned business based in Long Island, has enhanced the surfaces of critical aerospace components in jets, military helicopters, and rocket boosters with diffusion and thermal spray coatings that protect them from wear and harsh conditions.
Hitemco’s site expansion needs can be traced back to the arrival of current president, Tom Hammond, in 2008. One of Hammond’s first goals was securing new contracts for handling the coating processes on landing gear components for large airliners. Those new contracts required high-velocity oxygen-fuel (HVOF) coatings, a specialized thermal spray process that’s a significant improvement over chrome.
The only catch is that components must undergo grinding after coating. Upon adding three grinding machines to their operations, Hitemco was running out of room. Luckily, a site three doors down became available in 2020. After ten months of construction, the expansion is finished and ready to help Hitemco meet the coating demands of their customers in the aerospace industry.
Hammond says of the new buildout, “The facility is expanding our capacity. It allows us to increase the output we have in HVOF landing gear… which frees up some of our current building to expand capabilities for other opportunities, such as rockets.”
The expansion adds to Hitemco’s in-house capabilities including thermal and spray diffusion coatings, a metallurgical lab for ensuring coatings accuracy, and now grinding and fulfillment facilities in the new space.
Image – Hitemco’s new 10,000 sq. ft. facility expansion allows more room for the precise work of grinding HVOF coatings to the exacting standards required for critical aerospace components like landing gear.
For more information:
Hitemco
https://hitemco.com/
