Industrial Metal Finishing Experts

About the Dedicated Team at RP Abrasives

Industrial Metal Finishing FacilityRP Abrasives (RPA) was incorporated in 1996 and purchased in 2002 by Joe Shean a manager for a large machine tool manufacturing company. Joe and his wife were looking for a way to come back to New England so he decided to take on the adventure of owning a small business catering to the manufacturing industry and their need for deburring and metal finishing services. At that time RPA was in a long-term contract with one of the big mobile telecommunication companies to polish parts for their phones. At the height of production, RPA was polishing 250,000 parts per week, with 2 shifts running 10 hours a day Monday through Thursday, with an additional 8 hours each shift on Friday.

In early 2003 it was announced that RPA’s largest customer would be moving production overseas, this would cost the company more than 80% of its revenues. From here Joe chose eight of the best metal finishing experts out of the 50 employees that were staffed at the time. Joe then began rebuilding RPA, turning it into the reputable finishing company it is today. Four of the eight employees remain today!

Ashley Powell: is the Operations Manager and QC Director. Her 10+ years of industrial and quality control experience has helped RPA Excel in the surface finishing industry reach milestones never before achieved.

Debbie Beatty: Her skills have been developed over the 30-plus years she has worked in the industrial metal finishing industry and has taught and trained a core group of employees. This group understands all aspects of mechanical surface finishing, and the need for quality, responsiveness, safety, and teamwork to meet its goals.

Tim Harris: Our Vice President of Sales and Engineering came to RPA at the beginning of the telecommunications project. Working as the project manager he began to quickly learn the fundamentals of metal finishing. Tim would grow from there to understand all aspects of mechanical surface finishing.

Joe, Tim, Ashley, and Debbie worked tirelessly to grow the customer base and to develop processes that could be applied to various parts from various customers. This strategy was developed early on by Joe and the small team so that what happened in 2003 would never happen again. RPA is proud to say that they still have many of their original customers who have come to depend on the expertise that RPA offers in deburring and mechanical surface finishing and many new customers who have also come to rely on RPA for their surface finishing and deburring needs.

So if your company needs deburring, bead blasting, tumbling, polishing, or buffing please contact RPA and we will work with you to develop a process that will meet or exceed your goal. We do samples free of charge and will quote from prints or drawings.