History- A Scouting Success

Our Founder, John Rector, grew up in a college town. He earned his machine shop merit badge with the machine shop instructor at the University of Illinois. The instructor then invited the 5 Boy Scouts to return on Saturdays if they wanted to learn more. The only one to accept the offer was Johnny Rector.

This scout earned a college degree in Machine Shop Technology, for free, before he could drive a car.

At age 26 he was leading a dozen tool and die makers at the the DuPont Plant in Kansas City. They made tools to form 16mm cannon cartridges for the war. He received his first promotion because he could do square root in his head.

DuPont sent him out to the “Manhattan Project”, a secret weapons plant in the Eastern Washington desert. He arrived on his Harley Davidson. Here, he designed the process to sinter aluminum-boron, which was control rod material for the historic B Reactor.

It was the sintering process that captured his attention. Rather than machine parts, he could just press powder into shapes and sinter them. Western Sintering became his life work. The facility moved from the family basement to 28 acres, and expanded from one building to three. Sintering furnaces are fully automated and operate 24-7. We are open for visitors 6:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.