The Company was founded in Turin by the year 1929 under the name of P.L.I.M. (Products for the Mechanical Industry).
The founder was Michele Gallo, grandfather of the current managing director of Siapi.
The activity was to sell auxiliary products in Italy for mechanical processing. In particular:
- Cutting oils of French recipe.
- Diamond tools to dress abrasive wheels (producer: KOEBEL DIAMOND TOOLS in Detroit-Michigan-U.S.A.).
- Rubber and cork bonded abrasive wheels, produced by RAYBESTOS MANHATTAN RUBBER Co. – Piassalc N.J. U.S.A.
- Abrasive wheels with Bakelite binder, producer JOWITT&SONS – Sheffield U.K.
- Abrasive wheels with vitrified binder, producer: NORSKE Co. – Norvegia.
Of all the above mentioned manufacturers, P.L.I.M. was exclusive agent for Italy, and, from the beginning, it had a flattering selling success on the home market, counting among its Customers the most important mechanical industries of that time.
The year 1935
The Italy of Mussolini decided to conquer an empire and began military operations against Ethiopia.
The Society of Nations (an authority similar to the current ONU) decreed an embargo against Italy, blocking all the exportations towards all the developed nations.
This operation, baptized with the Italian name of “sanzioni”, effectively foreclosed to P.L.I.M. any chance to continue its work, having regard that all the products represented were coming from foreign countries subscribers of “sanzioni”.
They were forced to find alternatives to the state of fact.
The owners, until then, had been able to have a discreet liquidity, due to the brilliant marketing position of P.L.I.M., and decided to start a new activity in the much ballyhooed "autarchy" promoted by the ruling regime as a reaction to the “sanzioni”. They chose the field of the production of mechanical tools with a new
Company founded in Milan, chosen as territorial business; since 1936, this business started to become the main activity.
The name of the new enterprise was U.L.M.A. (Tools for mechanical processing and allied).
For P.L.I.M., it was decided to minimize the structure founded on the only
product that was still tradable: the cutting oils.
As an operational headquarters, P.L.I.M. left Turin and was moved to Milan for an easier monitoring by the Ownership, deeply committed to the new tooling factory.
It was so that, until the end of World War II, the old P.L.I.M. survived to the minimum level of life, having as single selling product the cutting oils for mechanical processes.
In 1945, the War ended. U.L.M.A., luckily survivor, was in full recovery.
P.L.I.M. was fished out of from the shadows and re-founded with the name of Siapi.
All the contacts with the companies represented before the “sanzioni” were resumed, in particular:
with “Manhattan Rubber” (U.S.A.) for the rubber wheels, with “George Jowitt” (U.K.) for the resin wheels, with “KOBEL DIAMOND TOOLS” (U.S.A.) for the diamond tools.
During the War, all the above mentioned companies had been making significant enhancements in the quality of their products.
Especially the company “KOEBEL”, in cooperation with some American producers
of machine tools (Jones & Lamson in particular), had finalized the construction of spinning reels to carry out that method identified as P.F.C. (Perpetual Form Control); this allowed to operate continuously, until the exhaustion of the wheel, the grinding of a shaped particular, maintaining constant profiles with absolute precision.
For the new Siapi, it was a happy recovery.
They reacquired the “old representatives” and they came back on the Market finally escaping from the forced hibernation caused by the “sanzioni” and the Second World War.
It was an intense and positive period up to the Seventies.
In a few months it happened that KOEBEL DIAMOND TOOLS was sold to the Company NORTON.
All the high quality products coming from KOEBEL were lost .
The RAYBESTOS MANHATTAN of Passaic N.J. (U.S.A.) decided to disclaim the production of the rubber wheels.
After a few months, Siapi was no longer in conditions to supply the wheels in rubber and cork mixture to Italian Customers.
As a matter of fact, it was a disaster.
Siapi, trying in extremis to save the Market, played a risky card: to produce the wheels in Italy,
It was an operation that was carried out in a few months, but which led to much more reliable results than any other previous attempt.
Therefore, in the Seventies, Siapi turned into a “mixed” holding:, it became a small factory of rubber and cork bonded wheels and continued to be a Commercial Representative for the resin bonded wheels and for other products.
The activity in the field of the Cutting oils was stopped.
The production of the rubber and cork wheels soon became dominant, in parallel with the commercial Organization, turned both to the selling of the wheels produced and to the resale of other products connected to the traditional subjects of the Company.
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Now-a-days, Siapi offers, besides the rubber and cork wheels, a wide range of abrasives for various applications, such as ceramic and resin bonded wheels, diamond wheels, polishing wheels for glass, grinding and cutting tools for various materials.
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