A West Plains business owner says he believes he’s found the answer to the common industrial problem of rubberized belts slipping on pulley systems in heavy-duty machinery.

Jon Osborne is the owner and president of Extreme Industrial Coatings Inc. (EIC), located at 11319 Willow Lane, in Airway Heights. Since its founding, the 12-year-old company has specialized in wear control, or making parts last longer, thus postponing or negating the need to replace them. As part of that focus, it produces high-tech, metallic- and ceramic-like coatings for oversized, heavy-duty dump trucks used mostly in gravel mining operations.

To solve the slipping belt problem, Osborne says he’s filed for a patent for a product he’s named the Vulcan Grip, a hard coating for pulleys that he says dramatically increases a rubber belt’s grip on a pulley system. He expects to be notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office early next year as to whether or not the patent will be approved.

“The rubberized belts that are used in heavy machinery are made of the same rubber in your car’s tires,” Osborne says. “The pulleys that drive them are made of smooth, cast iron, steel, or aluminum. Imagine trying to brake or corner in your car on a smooth surface. That’s when the vulcanized rubber, or V-Belt, begins to experience slippage.”

A slipping, rubberized belt on a smooth pulley surface can lead to an engine overheating, which in heavy duty machinery can result in combustion, Osborne says. Belt slippage also can contribute to a reduction in a machine’s productivity.

The idea started in 2013 when one of Osborne’s customers approached him about the frequent occurrence of drive belts slipping in his farm combine. 

“He was willing to be our guinea pig,” Osborne says. “We replaced the pulley system in his combine and eliminated that issue.” 

Osborne says the Columbia Basin-area farmer reported that in 250 operating days in his combine last year, he spent $15,000 less on diesel fuel and never experienced a belt slipping from its drive pulley.

Grain combines, forage harvesters, animal feed mixers, and mobile pump systems are some examples of machines where the Vulcan Grip can be used, Osborne says.

“For years, the industry has focused on the belt,” he says. “But as we did the research, what we see is that there hasn’t been an attempt to change the texture of the pulley to make it more compatible with the rubber belt.”

Extreme Industrial Coatings’ broad goal is to make some of the most abrasion-resistant coatings on the market. One of the technologies the company uses to enhance durability is called RocketCoat. It involves using a small rocket engine, generating exhaust gases moving at 10 times the speed of sound, to impact fuse tungsten carbide dust into the surface of metal parts, Osborne says. He claims the coating produced by the process is 50 times more abrasion-resistant than steel.

Since its founding, the company has doubled its floor space to 7,200 square feet. Staffing has grown from two part-time employees at the outset to eight full-time employees and two part-time workers now. Osborne says the company’s revenue last year was “at or above $1 million.”