Company History:
In April 1992, Specialty Testing and Development Company was established with our primary business being the manufacturing and sales of the Deposit Stress Analyzer System. We have become a leader in tensile and compressive stress testing of metallic coatings applied by electrolytic and electroless means. The company markets equipment for the determination of internal deposit stress measurements by the bent strip technology using the Deposit Stress Analyzer System. In November 2015 the Deposit Stress Analyzer System became ASTM approved as the ASTM Standard B975. The Spiral Contractometer was modified and in the summer of 2014 Specialty Testing and Development Company started marketing this Spiral Contractometer System which meets ASTM B636 Standards.
We are researching a new resist coating for the test strips which will work in a larger variety of plating baths currently not available.
Specialty Testing and Development Company is continuing to meet the growing needs of our customers. We look forward to working with our customers to provide technical support and meeting their unique plating applications.
About the Innovator:
Frank Leaman received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chemistry from Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. He completed graduate studies at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
While working as a Chemist at Dentsply International, York, PA, Frank received a patent for the world’s first electroless platinum plating process. Later, he obtained several additional patents including the platinum coating of anodes having a polysulfone core.
While employed by AMP, Inc. in Harrisburg, PA, Frank was responsible for the plating requirements of the Connector and Components Group. During this time, he received numerous cost reduction awards related to selective gold plating. He also conducted research on pulse plating of nickel, gold and palladium, and co-authored with Dr. Jean Claude Puippe, the world’s first textbook on pulse plating, Theory And Practice Of Pulse Plating.
In 1981, Frank became the owner and President of Electrochemical Company, Inc., a plating job shop that applied metallic coatings by electrolytic and electroless means to comply with specifications for military and aerospace applications. The company also did gold and silver decorative plating.
Frank has served on the ASTM committee to help set the standards for deposit stress through the Deposit Stress Analyzer Method (ASTM B975) as well as worked to update the Spiral Contractometer System (ASTM B636).