Every day, customers flock to The Shoppes at Hamilton for some of today’s latest products and fashions, but just across the street, one company continues Mercer County’s rich history of manufacturing.
Although the founders of Stonite Coil Corporation established their company in 1950, the company has roots in the factory of John A. Roebling, who moved his manufacturing business to Trenton in 1848.
The four original owners of Stonite Coil Corporation: George F. Engel, Fred Piepenbrinck, Joseph Smith, Louis Sigafoos Jr., and Charles F. Stone, were employees of the John A. Roebling’s Sons Company in Trenton, Bill Engel said.
Engel, the son of George F. Engel, is president of Stonite Coil Corporation.
Stonite’s owners started their corporation after Roebling ceased the manufacturing of electrical coils. Roebling had been asked to choose between producing copper wire or electrical coils, Engel said.
He said the company’s name is derived from Stone’s, who, like Piepenbrinck and George F. Engel, resided in Hamilton.
In the 1960s, George F. Engel purchased his partners’ stock in the business to become sole owner.
When the company was first established in 1950, it was run from the basement of George F. Engel’s house in Hamilton. It moved to Parker Avenue in Trenton, before George F. Engel bought the property where it is now located at 476 Route 156 in Hamilton.
Manufacturing is done on site at Stonite Coil Corporation. The products, which Engel classifies as “custom magnetics,” are used in numerous applications throughout the world.
Some of Stonite’s products are used in devices that are commonplace in the United States, such as the anti-theft tag systems in stores. Coils manufactured by the corporation are also found in MRI equipment.
Stonite’s products have had a global reach as well, Engel said. Pollution-control coils have been used in places such as Australia and Canada. Valves manufactured at Stonite are applied to work done in the petrochemicals industry in places like Dubai.
Many of the custom magnetic products created at Stonite Coil Corporation are used in the manufacturing processes of other products, from potato chips to automobiles, Engel said.
One of Stonite’s products has been used to create edges on razor blades during manufacturing. Some coils have applications in the pharmaceutical industry.
“We also do filtering coils that would be used for people that would be making medicines. Pills or any kind of tablets that compounds are put together, and yet, before they can be actually processed, they have to extract any possible ferrous material that may be in it,” Engel said. “Our coils would pull any kind of magnetic materials out of that.”
Engel said that some of the products manufactured at Stonite have changed very little over the years.
“Believe it or not, some of the products we still make had been designed in 1930,” he said.
However, advances in technology have led to some changes.
“Technology has definitely evolved with the advances in materials, in the advances with electronics, that have enabled our products to be reduced in their size and increased in their capabilities,” Engel said.
These days, Stonite is able to connect with clients through its website, but it still gets many jobs because of its reputation, Engel said.
“A lot of it is by word of mouth,” he said. “If you’re dealing with an engineer working for a major corporation, and he gets up and transfers to another corporation, he remembers the work that you’ve done for him.”
Engel said that Stonite has about 21 employees, 16 of which have worked with the company for more than 20 years.
He said the corporation is a throwback in the sense that it is in the manufacturing industry.
“I think we’re just becoming much more service-oriented, and to actually make things today, it seems like the glory or the luster’s off of it. People, really, I think don’t understand it because we have lost so much of the manufacturing here in Hamilton Township, in New Jersey, and in our country,” Engel said. “If you think about it, it can be the backbone of our nation. It always was, you know, and small business will continue to be.”
For more information about Stonite Coil Corporation, go online to stonitecoil.com.
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