SSE Pipefittings

The company was formed in 1935 by Mr. Arthur Bate under the name of Staffordshire Service Engineering Co. Ltd. In the late 1940’s the company moved to its present day site of Pedmore Road Dudley, the early years saw the company’s primary business based around general machining and engineering. During the 1950’s the company was approached by John Thompsons who were a main contractor to the newly formed United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority ( UKAEA) and from research and testing started to diversify from the standard engineering disciplines to forming and manipulating pipe into special pipe fittings in stainless steel for the new “Atomic Industry”. Over the following years the company experimented in producing branches and stubs on pipe work with various methods including explosives.
By the early 1970’s the company had established itself as the country’s largest manufacturer of cold-formed stainless steel pipe fittings. In the mid 70’s Mr. Bate made a decision to retire and sell the company.
Under new ownership a decision was made to change the name of the company to S.S.E Pipefittings Ltd to reflect the product to which it had now become associated.

After investigation into the market requirements it was decided that the company should invest in a hydraulic press that was capable of mass producing stainless steel Equal and Reducing Tees as this was seen to be an area of the market to capitalize on. In 1978 the company purchased the Wellman Tee forming press.

During the early 80’s the worldwide recession caused many businesses to fold but due to S.S.E’s specialist field of manifold manufacture it was able to ride out the problems without too much difficulty.
1984 saw the company bought by Mr. R.M. Hedge and from then until 1990 the company had a significant share of the UK market by supplying fittings to British Nuclear Fuels Limited ( BNFL) for the refurbishment of their Windscale site now known as Sellafield and the development of pipe fittings in Zeron 100 which is a Super Duplex material for the offshore petrochemical industries. During the same period S.S.E bought Supaflo Engineering Ltd., in the North East and RKB Stainless Fittings Ltd., in The North West. Both companies were manufacturers of cold-formed pipe fittings with Supaflo specialising in Elbows and reducers and RKB reducers and stub ends.

In 1993 the company saw the need to expand its business in the elbow market and purchased an elbow forming press.  Due to the success of the production from this machine in 1994 two more machines of the same type were purchased.The machines are capable of producing elbows from ½”NB to 6”NB in schedules 10s and 40s, 1993 also saw the company achieve BS5750 Pt.2 Quality approval (Now known as ISO 9002).

Due to the requirements of the American market where the size range for fittings extends more to the larger sizes i.e., 8”, 10” and 12”NB it was decided to purchase equipment to make that particular range so in 1995 the Belgium pipe fitting manufacturer “Befima” was purchased.

The whole plant was taken apart transported to the UK and reassembled in Pedmore Road. This equipment gave S.S.E the ability to produce elbows from ½”NB to 12”NB. Along with the two Schäfer forming presses equipment for sawing, heat treating, machining, pickling and finishing were also purchased which reaffirmed SSE’s commitment to ongoing improvement.

In 2000 the company was taken over as part of the RMH group by Wilsons Plc. But continued to trade under their own name. Then in August 2009 the Wilson Plc group was taken over by a private investor who is in the process of making a substantial financial investment in the business. The take-over involved the separation of Stockholding and Manufacturing, whereby SSE became a stand alone company responsible for its own destiny

SSE Pipefittings are renowned manufacturers of cold formed butt-weld pipefittings, extruded outlets, manifolds, elbows, tees,reducers, caps, stub ends, concentric and eccentric, swage nipples, etc; as standard products or to customers specifications.

Our Dudley operation includes some of the largest cold extrusion presses in Western Europe.

Products supplied

SSE Pipefittings are renowned manufacturers of cold formed butt-weld pipefittings, extruded outlets, manifolds, elbows,tees, reducers,caps, stub ends and swage nipples to international standards or customer drawings and specifications

Materials of the finest quality are essential to maintaining our high standards of manufacture.These include Austenitic, Duplex and Super Duplex stainless steels, Monel, Inconel and other Nickel Alloys, Titanium and Aluminium Alloys.

90 LR & SR Elbow

45 LR Elbows

180 Return Bends

Swaged Pipe

End Caps

Concentric Reducers

Eccentric Reducers

Equal & Reducing Tees

Gaskets

Flanges

Manifolds

Crosses