Timeline

1930s

• Superior Tube Company founded near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Clarence A. Warden Sr., Clarence A. Warden Jr., S. L. Gabel, and Richard H. Gabel (1934)
• Our first order for nickel tubing was received from the National Union Radio Corporation of Newark, New Jersey
• Superior became one of the nation’s largest producers of seamless, stainless steel hypodermic needle tubing
• 1st US Patent granted Superior for "Cathode for Thermionic Valves"
• Exhibits "World's Smallest Tube" at the New York World's Fair sparking a 25 year "smallest tube" race with British firm Accles & Pollock Ltd.

1940s

• Installed two tube reducers for integration with cold drawing operations
• We opened our second plant, which became the nation’s major source for vacuum tube parts used in ordnance proximity fuzes
• Superior Tube produced the first beryllium copper aircraft antenna for Northrop’s P-61 Black Widow, the first aircraft specifically designed to use radar
• The company won the Army-Navy E Award for excellence in the production of war equipment
• Following WWII beryllium copper "antenna" tapered tubing was produced for fresh and salt water fishing rods
• Superior Tube signed an agreement with Air Material Command to survey European cathode producers, leading to our first visit to Fine Tubes Ltd, then based in Surbiton, United Kingdom

1950s

• Superior Tube Inc and Fine Tubes Ltd formed an affiliation
• 200,000 feet of cladding were supplied to for Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania. It was the world’s first full-scale nuclear power station devoted exclusively to producing electricity for a civilian population, and opened in 1957.
• We established our Nuclear Product Division to manufacture vacuum welded zirconium and hafnium fabrications for reactor fuel and control rod assembles
• Zirconium reactor components were manufactured for the world’s first nuclear powered submarine, USS Nautilus, and the first nuclear aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise
• Superior Tube established its Photo-Forming Department to produce aperture masks for color TV tubes and photo-formed numbers for Nixie tubes
• The company acquired Magnetic Analysis Special Equipment (MASE) electronic flaw detection devices for the nondestructive testing of tubing

1960s

• Superior Tube supplied 80,000 feet of fuel cladding for Argonne National Laboratory’s EBR-II - Experimental Breeder Reactor-II - in Idaho
• North American X-15 rocket-powered aircraft used Superior tubing in its ballistic control system
• Bell Telephone Laboratories used Superior Tube’s tubing in the world’s first communications satellite, Telstar 1, launched in 1962
• Superior Tube initiated the design and development of an advanced tube rolling process leading to 14 patents in the US, Japan, the United Kingdom and Sweden
• Surveyor 1, America’s first probe to land on an extraterrestrial body, surveyed the lunar surface for the upcoming Apollo missions. It used Superior Tube products in its TV cameras

1970s

• When McDonnell Douglas developed its new F-15 Eagle fighter plane, Superior Tube supplied the Ti-3Al-2.5V hydraulic line tubing used in the aircraft
• Superior Tube developed and patented an integrated tube rolling process with manufacturing facilities to produce tubing from reactive metals and other high value, hard to work alloys
• US Atomic Energy Commission gave Superior Tube qualified status as a supplier of fuel cladding for the FFTF/LMFBR (Fast Flux Test Facility/Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor) in Hanford, Washington
• Superior Tube began collaborating with Fine Tubes in the UK to develop a process to produce Ti-3Al-2.5V hydraulic line tubing for the Concorde program
• In 1976, as a major supplier to Rolls Royce, Superior Tube was represented in the first west to east flight of the British Airways Concorde

1980s

• The NASA Space Shuttle program’s life support system relied on high pressure stainless steel tubing supplied by Superior Tube
• 2,000,000 feet of thin-wall stainless steel heat-exchanger tubing were delivered for the USAF Rockwell B-1B supersonic strategic bomber fleet
• Superior Tube also supplied Ti-3Al-2.5V hydraulic line tubing for the McDonnell Douglas Northrop F/A-18 multirole fighter
• Miniature stainless steel tubes were manufactured at Superior Tube for Raytheon’s portable FIM-92 Stinger, an infrared homing surface-to-air missile
• Thin-walled low-carbon stainless steel tubing for vacuum tight transition couplings were made for MRI scanners with a helium leak rate below one billionth of a cubic centimeter per second

1990s

• Superior Tube purchased VMR 25 CPM equipment from Valinox Nucleaire of Montbard, France
• The company received its first order for advanced cobalt-chromium alloy tubing for prototypes of new coronary stents
• Superior Tube developed a process to produce thin-walled zirconium (Zr4) fuel cladding for Battelle, the US Department of Energy’s tritium production program

2000s

• Superior Tube’s proprietary tube rolling process was used to produce titanium alloy tubing for artificial heart valve frames
• The Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers were launched with Superior Tube’s tubing on board
• The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar nuclear reactor facility received tritium producing fuel assemblies using Zr4 tubing made by Superior Tube
• Superior Tube purchased the world’s smallest 10-roll straightener from Turner Machine after a joint design effort for coronary stent tubing
• Employees past and present celebrated 75 years of innovation and tradition at Superior Tube in 2009

2010s

• Author Frank H Winter was commissioned to write a book chronicling the company’s history, entitled Superior – Land, Sea, Air, and Space
• Superior Tube Inc sold to the Watermill Group along with affiliate Fine Tubes Ltd
• Superior Tube received the "2014 Industry of the Year Award" from The Tube & Pipe Journal, an industry publication produced by The Fabricators & Manufacturer's Association, Int.