Stock Steel and Aluminum Installs New Press Brake.

Business Editors

SPOKANE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 14, 2003

This week Stock Steel and Aluminum is installing a new 400 ton 14 foot press brake in their Spokane plant according to Lawrence A. Coulson, the company's chief operating officer. He said the new forming machine bends metal into precise parts. The auto crowning die support enables it to maintain a consistent dimension along long parts. A `state of the art' computer assists the operator to program multiple bends using automatic parts gauging. The 400 tons of bending power will bend up to 1/2 inch thick steel plate along the length of the machine. Metal plate will be preprocessed for this new press brake on our 1/2 inch by 12-foot shear.

Coulson explained, their 750 ton 24 foot press brake, nicknamed `Orange Crunch', will continue to bend the customer's heavy and/or long (3/4" x up to 24 foot') bending requirements. The `Orange Crunch' has provided the longest and heaviest metal bending capacity between Seattle and Minneapolis since its installation in 1978. Metal plate and sheet is cut for this machine on a 5/8-inch by 20-foot long shear, nicknamed the `Orange Slice'. Our small capacity 175 ton 12 foot precision press brake will continue to form the light gage materials.

Stock Steel can cut up to 1-inch thick metals into intricate customer designed shapes with a 400-amp plasma. This specially designed Hyper-Therm plasma cuts precise metal parts under water to prevent part elongation due to heat. It straddles a 21-foot wide by 50-foot long by three-foot deep water table, the largest in our market area. It is also fitted with oxy-fuel torches for cutting metals up to 12 inches thick.

There has been an increase in metal bending requirements by the customers in the Inland Northwest market, an area 600 miles East to West, which is served by the company. Some of this increase is due to the addition of aluminum to the Company product range. Stock Steel is now a full line `Metals Service Center' supplying various grades of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass and other metals as a stocking distributor of a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Customer orders are delivered the next day by their fleet of ten trucks.

Stock's mission is: 'Keep our customers supplied with the right material at the right time every time'. Having the best equipment, in the best facility, delivering metals on the largest fleet makes fulfilling this mission possible, but that is not enough without people. The people, who keep Stock Steel running form an industrious, committed, conscientious, and thinking self-managed team that completes customer orders effectively without supervisors. They proved this again in April 2003 by delivering 99.239% of customers' orders on time. These results are among the best in our industry.

Stock Steel and Aluminum is an operating business of The Coeur d'Alenes Company that begins its 120th year of operation during 2003. CDA started business in Murray, Idaho during 1884 as a supplier of metals and tools to mining prospectors of North Idaho's famed Coeur d'Alene mining district. Most recently CDA expanded with metals convenience stores into Wenatchee, WA, Coeur d'Alene, ID, and will announce a new location within the month of May. This will make four such convenience stores counting the first located next to the Spokane plant.