A company which supplies the nuclear, naval and petrochemical industries with “fail-safe” fasteners has invested £120,000 in a new coatings plant which is expected to save the company money and create up to four new jobs.

BST Supplies Ltd has spent six months phasing in its new PTFE coatings unit at its Zenith site in Fordhouse Road, Bushbury, Wolverhampton, during a period when the firm was also working towards achieving environmental standard ISO 14001. Joint directors Tony Lawless and Stuart Mee said: “Our staff should be very proud of what they have achieved in bringing two complex projects to fruition in parallel.

“Our new in-house coatings plant will ensure that our products have the anti-corrosion and anti-gaulling security that is required. The process also stops the encroachment of sea life growth on to our products that are used underwater.

“The various fasteners we supply are colour and uniquely coded to ensure that they can be correctly identified even when they are in sub-sea service.”

BST Supplies manufactures precision special fasteners, threaded and machined components, often in small to medium or prototype-sized batches. The majority of components are manufactured in materials that are corrosion and/or heat resistant and may be required to be chemical resistant with many being safety or life-critical.

The firm supplies the petrochemical, nuclear and naval industries and government bodies.

Tony Lawless said: “The move to bring our coatings treatment in-house gives us better control, better delivery and assures our product quality. It is also kinder to the environment as it means less transport requirements if we carry out the coatings treatment on site.

“It was a hard project for staff to handle internally as the rigorous controls required in handling chemicals such as zinc phosphate mean that our effluent control had to be assured and inspected to the satisfaction of Severn Trent and our local authority’s environmental health department.”

Now that the plant is handling all BST Supplies’ own coating demand, the company will be offering the service to other companies in the Wolverhampton and wider West Midlands area – meaning even more cost savings on the original investment.