Apex Industries Inc., a Spokane Valley specialty sheet-metal fabricator, is expanding its facility at the Spokane Business & Industrial Park so it can boost production.


The company has leased an additional 12,000 square feet of space, where it plans to install new powder-coating equipment, adjacent to 30,000 square feet of space it already occupies in the same building, says Gordon Cudney, who co-owns the company with Matt Matthews.


Powder coating is a finishing process in which a powder form of dry paint is charged electrostatically and applied to metal parts, which then are placed in an oven where the powder is heat cured at 350 degrees to 400 degrees to form a durable finish, Cudney says.


The new equipment will include a five-stage wash line in which parts will be cleaned thoroughly, a pre-coating drying oven, a powder booth where parts will be coated, and a 644-square-foot curing oven. A conveyer will carry parts through the process, he adds.


Cudney declines to disclose the cost of the new equipment. The automated equipment, which will take a few months to install, is part of the companys plan to increase production, he says.


It will allow us to increase the volume and size of the parts we coat, he says. It will enable us to do large cabinetry.


Apex cuts, bends, forms, and welds sheet metal into precision parts for manufacturers, Cudney says. The parts include aircraft parts and enclosures for electronic and medical equipment.


Cudney says Apex employs 70 workers and expects the companys work force to grow over time, in part because of the expansion. He declines to disclose the companys annual revenues, although he says theyve been growing.


Apex was founded in 1993 at its current location in the former Key Tronic Corp. industrial sheet metal shop.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.