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By Molly Wilson
Over the last 12 years, Snider Tire has grown to provide Bluffton and the surrounding areas with services from retreading tires to powder coating.
The local plant, the only one in Indiana, now employs 27 workers and manages more than 50 standing accounts.
The company is one of 36 branches under the Snider Tire name.
The Bluffton branch opened in early 1996, and new equipment purchases in 2003, 2004, and 2005, as well as the addition of a Service Center in 2006, have helped the company expand.
Dave Double, manager, calls the Bluffton location “perfect.” They serve customers in Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Iowa, and Indiana.
“[Bluffton] is where we need to be for the customers we have,” he adds.
One of the main facets of business at Snider Tire is retreading used tires. Retreading involves shaving down the old treads until the rubber is smooth, and then attaching fresh treads to the old tire.
The process has become nearly automatic from the first buffing to last step of applying the new tread.
The retreaded tires safely last as long as a new tire at only about half of the cost. Clients of Snider Tire usually retread a tire twice in its lifetime.
Another way Snider Tire reduces cost is through recycling rubber. “We recycle everything,” Double says. “Everything we buff, we recycle the rubber dust. It goes to make mats, buoys on Lake Michigan, or rubber mallets. With everything we do, [the waste] is recycled back into something.”
In addition to retreading tires, powder coating makes up a large part of the company’s business. “Anything I can get into the oven we powder coat,” explains Double. “Powder coating is where we take all the paint off of a metal object, and then we spray on the new coat. What adheres it to the metal is static electricity. Then we bake [the powder coat] on and it’s as hard as rock. It makes the finish look brand new.”
The company can powder coat anything from industrial parts to toys. One major client is Franklin Electric Company. Snider Tire powder coats between seven and ten thousand parts each year for Franklin Electric, estimates Double.
Besides Franklin Electric, Snider Tire does powder coating work for smaller groups as well.
“We’ve done little red wagons for grandparents, little antique pedal cars, antique wheels,” says Double.
Business at Snider Tire is not slowing down. “The retreading business has become like the farming business: you either get bigger or you get out,” Double explains.
“ We’ve gotten a lot of smaller retreaders and just taken them under the Snider umbrella. When I first started out there were seventeen or eighteen branches and now there are thirty-six today. It’s just grown tremendously over the twenty years I’ve been working.”
With a prime, central location in Bluffton and a large market, Snider Tire continues to develop as one of the nation’s leading retreading companies.