Safety in your hands
There are often casual references to niche products but few businesses have, quietly and steadily over more than two decades, succeeded in so exclusively occupying a highly specialised position in the market as one small Birmingham manufacturer.
atch a concrete anchor, or for that matter a scaffolding installation, ringbolt or safety line system, tested in the UK and it is a virtual certainty the portable tester in use will have been manufactured by Hydrajaws Limited.
These days, there is a strong probability across Europe, North America, the Middle East, even Asia and Australia, that the same will also prove true, although the name on the equipment may be that of a multinational fixings supplier.
The Hydrajaws portable tension tester was brought to market almost by accident, established through courageous personal commitment to its potential, and brought to maturity through continual responsiveness to its users and determined adherence to manufacturing quality and service.
The company started in 1960 as a specialist manufacturer of hydraulic workholding equipment. In 1984, when it was bought by an engineering
group, Royston Morgan was persuaded to leave the security of a 20-year career with a hydraulic manufacturer to become managing director.
“The machine tool business went reasonably well for the first year or so,” he recalls, “but it became clear workholding demand was declining in the UK, through overseas competition, structural decline in British
industry, and the transition to CNC machining.” The writing may have been on the wall – but the solution was far from apparent.
In 1985 Royston received a call asking whether Hydrajaws could come up with an idea for testing fixings and anchors. “I didn’t really know what they wanted but said I would look at it,” explains Royston Morgan. “I went to a big Birmingham fastener maker, put my cards on the table and asked how they tested a fixings installation.” The answer was a cumbersome rig, comprising separate hydraulic pump, hose and cylinder – a far cry from the portability and ease of use provided by today’s
Hydrajaws Model 2000 medium duty tester. “We came up with a
design that would do the same job, and as well as being portable had a lot more potential to tackle different applications.”
“We made this thing,” says Royston. “By then, though, the original enquirer had long since been scared off by the cost of producing a one-off, so it sat on the corner of my desk.” Where it might well have remained, had Royston Morgan not received a visit from a freelance journalist looking to write an article on workholding equipment. “He said, ‘I know what that does’ and asked to write about this new concept for testing fixings.”
Soon after publication Royston Morgan received another visit, this time from Clive Andrews of SPIT. “I started explaining what the product did but Clive said, “I know exactly what it does – I’d like to order fifty of them.’”
Some of those first fifty testers are still around – Hydrajaws sees them regularly for calibration. It’s a testament to the simplicity and effectiveness of the original design, and Hydrajaws commitment to component and manufacturing quality. “That said,” adds Royston wryly, “I cannot help thinking on occasions we should have built in some obsolescence and given ourselves the chance to sell a few more replacements.”
Hydrajaws are not sure how many of their portable testers are now in the market but a quick bit of number crunching between Royston and son Adrian, who is now sales director, gets close to the ten thousand mark. That includes hundreds of units supplied worldwide under the brand of a leading fixings multinational.
Hydrajaws is solidly a family business. Royston’s wife took responsibility for the accounts many years ago, a role now shared with Adrian’s wife. Adrian, for twelve years a tennis professional, joined the business in 2003, serving his ‘apprenticeship’ in the workshop before moving onto commercial and sales responsibilities.
Royston Morgan downplays it, but acquiring the business clearly represented a significant leap of faith. By the mid 1980s he was taking the tester’s potential seriously, precisely as the decline in the workholding business steepened. Hydrajaws’ holding company, though, was not interested. Royston secured a small government grant, put his house and family’s future on the line, and undertook a management buy out. He took with him three employees and set up a few hundred metres away from the original company site. The company continued to sell some workholding equipment to existing customers until about 1990,
but the concentration was on the tester, which “began to find its own market”.
At that time the regulatory environment in the UK provided little support for the tester – most usage was comparative; one manufacturer proving its product was as good or better than the competitors. About this time Mark Salmon, a regular contributor to this magazine and then technical sales manager at Rawlplug, was introduced to the tester. Today, as an independent There are often casual references to niche products but few businesses have, quietly and steadily over more than two decades, succeeded in so exclusively occupying a highly specialised position in the market as one small Birmingham manufacturer. Fixings consultant, Mark is a forthright supporter of Hydrajaws technology. “I have used Hydrajaws test equipment over the last 21 years in testing over 13,000 fixings on construction projects,” he says, “and have found it to be perfect for this highly critical aspect of validating the suitability of fixings for a particular job or the quality of their installation. Over the years Hydrajaws has developed and refined their testers in order to ensure they meet the needs of this specialist work, resulting in equipment that is
easy to use, accurate and reliable. They have also developed a wide range of different bridges and accessories to ensure that virtually any testing requirement can be met. Their customer support is second to none with an excellent repair service and a high priority placed on the rapid turn round of units returned for calibration.”
The evolution of the Hydrajaws tester and its adaptation to market and, increasingly, regulatory requirements is unquestionably key to its continued success. The core product remains the Model 2000 medium duty tester, which has a testing capability up to 25kN. Over the years a huge array of accessories and bridges have been developed for specific applications, many of them now established as part of Hydrajaws’ standard range.
Hydrajaws works closely with both the scaffolding and fall arrest industries. Its Scaffold Tester enables contractors to follow NASC/CFA Contractors guidelines and satisfy the Health and Safety Executive Scaffolding Protocol. Recently revised, the Scaffold Tester Kit will test all of the anchors commonly used for scaffold ties. For safety lifeline testing, Hydrajaws worked with a major contractor to design a portable cable system tester, now lighter, more compact and very user friendly.
Designed originally to test M12 to M30 diameter threaded bar the Hydrajaws Model 2008 Heavy Duty Tester has a 145kN test capacity and is suitable for a wide range of applications, including bridge parapet anchors, anchorages for crash barriers and safety fences, holding down bolts, cast in sockets, and all types of high load expanding and resin anchors.
“We have come full circle, in a way,” says Adrian Morgan. “The tester was born out of someone looking for a solution. Today, we have many people coming to us with a problem for which we create an effective testing solution.” Some applications are not immediately obvious. For example, Hydrajaws developed a range of adaptors for testing the pull out resistance of cartridge fired nails. More recently the company designed a special range of testers for lift shaft anchors, for which it has
supplied several hundred kits. Hydrajaws also has a special 80mm long stroke tester for testing fixings used for roofing, which has a larger base area to reduce pressure on fragile roofing materials.
A staunchly UK company – each tester flies the Union Flag – Hydrajaws’ recognition has progressively spread worldwide. With the assistance of Leamington based Comtec Translations, Hydrajaws has now launched a series of additional websites providing detailed information about its technologies in French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Polish.
In a world industry that is under ever more stringent safety regulation but still sadly experiences entirely avoidable accidents, where more and more businesses are rightly taking their safety responsibilities extremely seriously, there is no question Hydrajaws has a healthy future. The commitment of the Morgan family is also unquestionable. Working two days a week, Royston Morgan’s passion for both product and company
is unquenchable. ‘Apprenticed’ in all the practical aspects of the business, Adrian Morgan is deploying real creativity to develop Hydrajaws’ international sales while ensuring the business continues to provide utterly reliable technology and excellent service to its home market.