By Tania Phillips
Garfield Engineering are local legends in the Garfield business community with the family owned company operating in the same place since the early 50s – adapting to what the growing community need along the way.
And although Covid has seen a quietening in business, the ever-changing business – which these days specializes in locks and door furniture – is still keeping on keeping on according to company director Peter Heywood.
“With the virus business going on things have slowed down a little bit but we’ve still got some good work in the pipeline, though one project that we’re doing doesn’t really start until September,” Peter said.
“That’s six months of work but it’s from September. We have half of that order ready to go now, we’re ahead of the stock.”
Peter has been with the business since he was 16 and started there in 1975 and it’s clear he loves what he does and the legacy he is carrying on.
“The business was started by my late father back in 1954,” Peter explained.
“At that stage my father was doing diecasting. He was doing work for the motor mower industry making the decks for the mowers.
“He was casting them here in our workshop and he was also doing little cars done in diecast – then they would get painted – they were little early model Holdens.
“He went into electro-plating after that – doing chrome plating and all of that kind of thing. But with the EPA and the restrictions around toxic chemicals around town it probably wasn’t the right thing to continue to do – because back in those days we didn’t have a lot of sealed drains. So he got out of that and went into more of the engineering side of things and that’s when I started my apprenticeship here.”
The company went on to make and supply all the castors for hospital trolleys also working for Lane Hardware making components for the commercial lock industry before purchasing the Lane-Astra product in 2001. The have continued on since then providing locks and more for hospitals, nursing homes and even jails.
Now, Garfield Engineering is not only manufacturing but also assembling and dispatching all Astra products around Australia from their Garfield factory – the same factory where they worked for the Sydney Olympics, providing a lot of the locks and door furniture for the Olympic Village in 1998-99.
Their friendly staff are on hand to assist with any enquiries – call their Garfield office on 5629 2490 or visit their factory warehouse at 68 Railway Avenue, Garfield.
