Skat trak tire4/5/2023 ![]() ![]() Again, the process is time consuming but results in a superior product each and every time. Likewise, every impeller is compared against a final template to ensure that the pitch, angle and blade is correct. Each prop is individually and meticulously evaluated, it’s rough casting polished into a glistening final product. Once “hatched” from its mold, the impeller is sent off to be polished, measured and finished. As it stands, Skat has several hoops to jump through to appease such laws, the newest of which requiring the company to collect runoff from its parking lot within 24 hours of a rainfall, and submit it for analysis at any number of “approved” laboratories or face excessive fines. Of course, waste is a major issue as California’s strict anti-pollution legislation has all but driven manufacturing from the Golden State. Thankfully, much of the unused slag necessary to fill the impeller molds is recycled, saving Skat-Trak tens of thousands of dollars in material over the years. From the blistering furnace, the ceramic molds will be shattered, most of their contents to be thrown away. We passed by pallets of dulled stainless steel ingots stacked in the same way gold bricks are in movies, the metal’s luster only to be brought out in the finishing process. Obviously, handling molten 17-4 stainless steel requires proper protection as workers are faced with searing temperatures. Snaking from one room to the next, Michelle showed us how each impeller, stator and intake grate is cast in wax before being dipped in several proprietary ceramic solutions, coating it enough to create a mold wherein molten stainless or aluminum is poured and kilned, baking the wax out, leaving a rough, unfinished part. That was fine as our tour was intended to be purely experiential, not a nuts-and-bolts breakdown of Skat’s processes. Michelle had volunteered to clear her schedule and walk us through the Skat-Trak headquarters with one key caveat, much of the proprietary processes couldn’t be photographed or documented. Until that time, I had never seen my father “geek out.” I still use your paddles on my Rhino,” he continued, producing a couple of photos hastily printed from his home computer that morning. “I had a shop that rented out jet skis, dirt bikes and ATCs in the ’80s. “I was one of your biggest customers,” my 71-year-old father boasted as he shook Business Office Manager Michelle Stuart-Thompson’s hand. ![]() Beginning with developing custom paddle tires for dune buggies, sand rails and ATVs, Skat-Trak stepped into offering impellers by the early 1980s. Over its 60-plus-years of manufacturing, the Stuart family has earned incomparable notoriety in both the worlds of personal watercraft and sand sports. These vats need to be kept circulating or will immediately harden. Spanning over half a century, the equipment inside is a hodgepodge of modern CAD-design computers, high-tech CNC machines, ancient Naval shipyard-grade Bridgeport presses and drills, to custom-designed tooling shielded from peering camera lenses.Įach component – be it an impeller, a stator or intake grate – starts as a wax mold before being dipped and baked several times to create the final ceramic mold. Yet, that is the history laden in Skat-Trak. The front office is clean and new with a bright marquee hanging above the front door that directly contrasts a faded and weathered hand-painted sign stretching across the facade of the original large aluminum warehouse out back, a few feet off of the side street entrance. The multi-acre facility perched off of the northern side of the Inland Empire’s 10 Freeway is an industrial version of the Winchester Mansion, a maze of cross-crossing expansions, additions and alterations that date the company’s near-60 years of business like rings on a tree. “I’m going,” my father insisted when I announced that I was scheduled to tour the Calimesa, California, headquarters of legendary Skat-Trak Performance Products. We spotted these still new-in-box 20-year-old props in the inventory. The history of Skat-Trak is still found throughout the company’s massive facility.
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