THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 15, 1994 TAG: 9409140177
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
THE NEXT time you take a heart-wrenching ride on the Big Bad Wolf rollercoaster at Busch-Gardens Williamsburg, remember Lou Schmitt.
He put the spring in that thing.
His springs are found in other things, too.
Schmitt and workers at his Custom-Made Springs plant on West 40th Street in Norfolk create hand-coiled and flat-notched elastic devices that go in all sorts of machinery. His springs are in machines that assemble tea bags, package peanuts and roll cigarettes. They're used in repairing ships at area shipyards, for keeping construction equipment running, and insuring that beds are comfortable.
``Springs are everywhere in everything,'' the spring maker said. ``Cars are loaded with them. We've always got someone needing one.''
Years ago, Schmitt was told by a contractor that one of his springs was even going to be used in a Viking spacecraft that was headed to Mars.
Talk about resiliency.
The age-old spring is still as useful as it ever was, Schmitt believes. Even a high-tech, micro-chip world needs these simple devices to operate.
``They're just an economical way to store energy,'' he said. ``They're here to stay.''
Schmitt didn't always think so highly of springs.
As a young boy, he worked part-time in the spring business his father, L.A. Schmitt, started in the family's 41st Street basement in 1952. Young Lou worked as a ``human rack''.
He hated it.
Holding strands of thinly cut steel while his father worked on a mandrell, fashioning custom-made springs by hand, was not Schmitt's idea of what he wanted to do with his life.
But he was only 10 then. At 33, after years of selling men's clothing, Schmitt joined his father in the business.
``He was a little man with a lot of nervous energy,'' Schmitt, 53, recalled about his father. ``He was a machinist at the Naval Air Station and started making springs as a part-time thing out of the basement of our house. He started out with nothing for equipment. I went into the business with the intention of seeing what happened.''
His father died just three years later. The only son, Schmitt stayed with the thriving business.
Today, the Norfolk native no longer works as a human rack, but like his father, he's still creating springs by hand. The business is the only one of its kind found between Baltimore and Charlotte, N.C. There are only about 400 spring manufacturers in all of the United States and Canada.
Now, with a shop that's chocked full of equipment and four times the size of his father's original one, Schmitt and his two full-time workers can pump out as many as 5,000 customized springs in six or seven hours. They make all varieties, including compression springs, extension springs, torsion springs and flat ones, in a range of sizes and materials.
They recently made a tiny flat copper spring with intricate notches that was smaller than a penny. Another, made of 7/16 of an inch wire, extends 6 feet and is large enough in diameter that a cat could tunnel through it.
The cost of the springs vary, anywhere from 10 cents to $22,000. Because the price becomes prohibitive for consumers needing just one or two springs for household uses, most of their business comes from industrial concerns needing significant quantities.
The business is still family-run. Schmitt's wife, Janet, handles the bookkeeping, and his 23-year-old son, a junior at Old Dominion University, works part time.
Like his father, however, son James isn't too sure he wants to make springs the rest of his life.
``He's like I was,'' the elder Schmitt said. ``When I was young I didn't want any part of springs either. Things change.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by JIM WALKER
Lou and Janet Schmitt with a 940-pound coil of oil-tempered spring
steel at the plant.
Plant worker Mike Sivells makes a spring on a Carlson Spring
Coiler.
Schmitt and his employees make a variety of springs in a range of
sizes and materials.
by CNB