About CA Richardson, Inc. Metal Stamping Company

Charles A. Richardson, Inc. was founded in Massachusetts in 1853 by Orville P. Richardson. The primary products manufactured by metal stamping companies in those days were specialty hardware parts used in the manufacture of components for the textile “shuttle”. The shuttle is a tool that carried the bobbin with thread or yarn while weaving with a loom. In the early days, textile manufacturing became the dominant industry in New England during the Industrial Revolution and the massive mills were often located along rivers to take advantage of water flow as a power source. Our facility was built adjacent to the Wading River to utilize its power, although our water wheel has long since been retired. Over time the product lines at Charles A. Richardson, Inc. evolved with the economy and we continued producing shuttle hardware from 1853 until the early 1980s. In the later years, the textile industry started to migrate from New England to the Southern states. In the 1980s new “shuttle-less” looms were developed, making the shuttle parts we manufactured obsolete.

In the 1900s our metal stamping company developed and manufactured recreational and professional grade baseball “spikes” or “cleats”, and rapidly became the leading manufacturer in the country. We made cleats in various shapes and sizes to satisfy the customer’s requirements. We supplied several athletic shoe companies, such as Adidas, Hyde, Wilson, and many others. We would also design cleats upon special requests from some professional athletes. There was one instance when Ted Williams thought he had a great design improvement for a cleat, but it did not work out and the tooling was retired, needless to say, he was a better ball player than a cleat designer. At its peak, we manufactured enough cleats for approximately 1 million pair of shoes per year. Our slogan was “The Standard Wherever Baseball is Played”. However, like the textile business, sporting shoe manufacturing eventually moved overseas and as a result cleats were being sourced to overseas manufacturing firms.

Our primary product since 1960 and still manufactured today are welding flanges. These flanges have a female pipe thread and are designed to be welded to a tank to enable the end user to thread a fitting or component into the tank. When we first started production, our flanges were mainly used for 275-gallon home heating oil tanks. Since then, we have broadened both the sizes and materials from which we manufacture these fittings to accommodate a diversified customer base. Today, our metal stamping company manufactures welding flanges in steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. Our thread sizes range between 1/8” pipe to 2” pipe depending on the alloy. In addition to our standard line of flanges we can also manufacture stampings to your requirement, whether they be a variation on one of our existing products or something entirely different.

Today, Charles A. Richardson, Inc. continues as a family owned and operated metal stamping company with the fourth generation of descendants managing the business. There have been a lot of changes over the years with our product line, but one thing has remained constant, that is to Manufacture a Quality Product that is Competitively Priced and Delivered On Time.