Cutting Edge Technology From Southbridge Firm | If you eat it, a Hyde Tools blade probably cut it
The Hyde Tools plant on Eastford Road in Southbridge is a very interesting place. But when someone holds up a circular blade that appears to be a foot across and explains that it’s used in poultry processing to cut through the breastbones of our tasty feathered friends, now, that’s a factory I’d like to check out.
But this isn’t about the journey from bird to boneless, skinless breast, it’s about a more-than 130-year-old company that still finds ways to innovate and stay on top of its game while manufacturing its products stateside.
Heavy Machinery
The factory floor at Hyde Tools’ Industrial Blade Solutions division is a sight to behold.
At first glance, it appears and sounds a lot like any other heavy industrial factory floor. But from its modest plant, Hyde manufactures between 600 and 700 types of industrial blades for some 400 different customers.
Many of those blades are ordered, custom engineered at Hyde and manufactured with a turnaround of as little as three or four weeks.
The company stocks specialty steels for this purpose and also does heat treating and laser cutting for other manufacturers.
The place runs on a mix of old and new technology. The sound of the computer-controlled, laser-guided machine that cuts perfectly circular blades from sheets of stainless steel is often overwhelmed by the deafening sound of blades being stamped nearby by a machine that appears as if it’s been in constant use since 1875.
And the range of blades they produce is no less vast. Hyde makes blades that military paratroopers use to cut parachute chords in emergencies. It also makes blades used in the manufacturing of tires, and textiles and blades that remove the pits from olives and other food-related manufacturing from potato and mushroom slicing to walnut processing, fish processing and banana cultivation.
The list is almost endless, and I haven’t even mentioned the tools for which Hyde is best known.
By the 1920s and 1930s, the company was already making paint tools, but after World War II, new home construction took off and paint tools became what Hyde would be, and still is, best known for, according to Richard Clemence, the company’s president and the fourth generation of the family that owns Hyde.
The Edge On Overseas
That kind of experience allows Hyde to ship its products to places like Mexico, Central America and China at a time when things tend to work in the other direction, Clemence said.
“They know the difference, and they’re willing to pay extra for these, because they last a little longer” than blades manufactured in China, Clemence said.
And it’s a good thing. “Last year, the building industry fell off, but industrial blades are always there,” Clemence said. “It keeps a steady income stream for our companies.
For companies that make only these tools,” he said of the paint tools line, “they’re having a real tough time.”
Under the Hyde Group name are Hyde Tools, knife-maker Dexter Russell, A. Richard, which is essentially Hyde Canada, American Paint Paddle Co. of Charleston, S.C., which makes wooden paint sticks and Roman Decorating Products, which is based in Chicago and makes wall paper adhesives, removers and paint primer.
Got news for our Industrial Strength column? E-mail Managing Editor Matthew L. Brown at mbrown@wbjournal.com.
Video Clips
Rick Cloutier, Hyde Tools national sales manager, describes what several blades manufactured by Hyde Tools are used for:
A machine at Hyde Tools in Southbridge cuts circular blades from a sheet of stainless steel.
This machine bevels and sharpens blades used in poultry processing. One side of the blade is completed on one side of the machine, then it is moved to the other side to be completed.
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