Superior Tube celebrates 80th anniversary

Collegeville, Pa.-based Superior Tube, a manufacturer of precision tubing, celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2014. The company’s products are used in a variety of industries, including aerospace, power stations, oil and gas extraction, and medicine.

Founded in 1934, the company is a pioneer in the manufacture of precision nickel tubing used in cathode ray tubes and hypodermic needles. The company also was the first precision tube mill to draw titanium, niobium, and tantalum products, and it manufactured the tubing used in the first cardiac stent implants.

The firm supplied specialist tubing to customers that have been directly involved in a number of landmark technological developments: the Manhattan Project, which led to humankind first harnessing the energy of the atom; the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered vessel; the Bell X-1, in which Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier; and the Apollo Project, which put the first man on the moon.