Sargeant & Wilbur was established in 1939 in the ground floor of a small factory building in Providence, Rhode Island to manufacture controlled atmosphere heat treating and brazing furnaces for the local precious metals and jewelry industry. In 1942 the company outgrew the small facility and moved the offices and works to a larger plant in nearby Pawtucket, RI. The firm was now also building equipment for bright stainless steel annealing and hardening, powdered metal sintering, blackening and glass to metal sealing of electronic packages as well as many other metallurgical applications. In 1978 Sargeant & Wilbur built a new 20,000 square foot factory and offices in a cross-town Pawtucket location to facilitate fabrication and assembly of the larger more sophisticated equipment demanded by the automotive, aerospace, specialty metals, electronics, chemical and nuclear industries as well as many other specialized applications.
 

While manufacturing procedures and control requirements have changed through the years. Sargeant & Wilbur has continuously adapted equipment to be compatible with existing requirements.
 

Our equipment is designed to remain in service for many years, so it is normal to find a forty-year-old furnace in operation processing product with satisfactory results and much older equipment is frequently found in operation producing good work. Thus, the equipment must be engineered to enable convenient upgrade to accommodate changing technology over time. It is not uncommon to find older Sargeant & Wilbur equipment integrated directly into new manufacturing systems producing products which had not been developed at the time the equipment was built. These flexible yet durable furnace designs will meet your immediate requirements and we are confident they may also achieve objectives which have not yet been realized.