Accushape™, Inc. History
Accushape™ was started in 1987 by Robert Lee for the purpose of scaling up the production of knife handles for Buck Knives made by pressing and sintering (PS) of titanium sponge granules (titanium powder) (TSG) to produce a net shape finished handle. Accushape later became a successor company to part of the businesses of Rem Metals, also owned by Robert Lee.
Robert Lee, and Bill Raymont had been key players in the development of titanium PS processes at Fansteel Metallurgical Corp and Rem Metals Corp. The main program was the successful production in the early 70’s of Ti 6-4 B-Nuts for the Douglas DC-10 needed to be used with the advent of Ti 3.25 hydraulic tubing lines. The TSG input material originated from the DeeSide Na reduction plant in England.
Between 1988 and 1998 Accushape produced over 500,000 titanium PS parts including knife handles, golf club inserts, hex nuts and washers. The Deeside and RMI Na reduction plants were closed in 92 and 93 eliminating the sources of input material. Using accumulated inventories Accushape™ maintained parts production until 1998 when the combination of limited raw materials and a fire resulted in a decision to discontinue production of titanium PS parts.
Accushape™ did continue its business of custom screening and sizing of titanium powders originally started because input material was not available in the desired particle sizes. Accushape™ purchases the titanium sponge fines not used for the primary production of titanium sponge for high purity electronic applications since the start of production in 1996 in Salt Lake City of a new high purity Na reduction method titanium sponge plant, New press and sinter applications have been developed but not moved to production because the amount of material available has been absorbed by existing applications.
During the past 39 years, Robert Lee has been directly involved in the processing of 100’s of thousands of pounds of titanium powders and hundreds of thousands of press and sinter parts of titanium. Accushape™ has evaluated and or used titanium powders and fines from all known processes.