Company History
GBC was established in 1956 as the Glass Beads Corporation. Their first products were pressed technical glasses, then shortly after they started making ceramics. In 2012, they started serving the investment casting industry with alumina rods and tubes. By 2014, GBC started offering fused silica rods/tubes. GBC has developed more efficient ways of processing powder and improving the quality of finished components with better extrusion processes and improved lead times to customers by increasing sintering yields.
Products and Services
GBC Advanced Materials makes alumina rods with or without notches along with alumina tubes for the investment casting process. Several different grades of alumina are available with purity up to 99.8%. Their alumina rods give strength to leachable cores so customers can make larger more complex shapes. 10 ❘ April 2024 GBC also makes fused silica rods, sticks, supports, cores, and tubes. Their fused silica products are used to support wax trees during the investment casting process, and they also help mark hole locations on parts / keep holes clear. GBC helps the investment casting industry by providing precision parts with quick delivery in as little as 2-3 weeks. They have hundreds of extrusion tools in stock along with capabilities to provide extruded products in different shapes. Available geometries include semi-circular, square/ rectangular, oval, and custom configurations available upon request. GBC has a top-notch process engineering team with well over 50+ years of combined ceramics industry experience. They have an in- house machine shop to modify and build tools to reduce lead time, so they are not as reliant on outside vendors for immediate requirements. They can consider stocking components or building ahead with blanket orders on a case-by-case basis. Extruded parts can be made with diameters as small as 0.018” and up to about 1.000”. Lengths of extruded parts can be made up to 36.000”. GBC’s sales and engineering team are happy to answer client questions about the feasibility of a design from a production standpoint and offer assistance with cost reduction ideas during the design process.
Facility Capabilities
GBC’s plant was recently expanded to 50,000 sq. ft. of floor space to house new extruders, furnaces, and additional tools. GBC sales manager, Christopher Azarko is pleased to say, “We are celebrating our 3rd anniversary as a privately held independent firm; since being divested from Morgan Advanced Materials in 2021 — GBC has added many new team members in sales, production, and engineering to better assist customers with improved response times, reduced lead times, and additional customized capabilities with new equipment plus additional material formulations.”
Looking Forward
GBC plans to continue to invest in their offerings to better serve customer needs in investment casting and additional avenues to support customers will be explored as they bring new requirements to us. Their private ownership structure enables us to review customer requests ® much more quickly and effectively than a large organization. As a mid-size company with about 50 employees, they are large enough to support and small enough to care about both new and existing clients. They expect to continue investing in additional capabilities, equipment, and tooling. All of their products are made with American labor in Latrobe, PA. They are conveniently located near investment casting hubs in the Midwest US. They are practically neighbors to many casting companies in PA who visit their plant to obtain personalized service and support. They support customers both large and small from prototype quantities to full scale production runs. They do not chase small companies away with high minimum order requirements. They also can offer quick lead times as they run extruded alumina and fused silica on a regular basis.
Industry Certifications and Quality Control
ISO 9001 : 2015 Certified Company with certificates available upon request. DFARS Cyber Compliant REACH Compliance RoHS Compliant TSCA Compliant CA PROP 65 Compliant GBC offers in house quality control lab to measure material properties and final component features. “The health and safety of employees and the community is the highest priority for GBC. Employees are treated like family,” Christopher Azarko concluded.
