About us
We have cast metal since 1945. We are no longer located at Rolvsøy.
About the name — Rolvsøy and Rade
The company is called Rolvsøy Metallindustri and is located in Rade. That deserves an explanation, because it otherwise looks like a mistake.
Rolvsøy was a municipality in its own right until 1994 and is today a district of Fredrikstad. That is where the business was founded in 1945, and where the factory stood for more than seventy years. A photograph of the plant on Storveien from 1952 still exists in the local history archive.
In 2020 we began building a factory designed for the way we wanted to produce. After a three-year process, production moved to Torvstikkeren 20 in Rade — an entirely new, purpose-built plant.
The name came along. Eighty years of accumulated craft knowledge sits inside it, and we see no reason to replace it because the postcode changed.
A practical note: several directory services still list an old Rolvsøy address for us. It is out of date. The correct address is Torvstikkeren 20, 1640 Rade, Norway.
And another: there is a company called Rolvsøy Metallindustri Eiendom AS, registration number 915 465 676. That is a different company under different ownership and has nothing to do with us. Our registration number is 981 465 415.
Timeline
What is documented. We have left out what we cannot substantiate.
- 1945
1945
The business is founded at Rolvsøy
The beginning of what is today close to eighty years of light metal casting experience.
- 1952
1952
The factory documented in a photograph
The plant on Storveien at Rolvsøy is preserved in the Østfold county photographic archive.
-
The 1990s: machining is built up
CNC machining becomes a service area in its own right. Today more than thirty years of experience.
- 2000
2000
The present legal entity is registered
Rolvsøy Metallindustri AS, registration number 981 465 415, registered 19 January 2000. The business has run continuously since 1945.
-
Around 2014: the West Mekan collaboration begins
Aluminium castings for ferry and passenger furniture. More than ten years later we are still supplying.
- 2020
2020
We start building a new factory
The question we asked was how we could become a preferred supplier beyond the fact that our raw material is recycled. The answer was an entirely new plant.
-
After three years: re-established in Rade
Torvstikkeren 20. A closed water loop, recovered waste heat, solar panels on the roof, and the whole process chain under one roof.
We do not state a precise year for the move, because we have not documented one. Our own account says after three years, and we leave it there until we can put down a year we can stand behind.
Five people
We are five employees. It is worth saying what that actually means, in both directions.
It means you talk to the person who runs the machine. There is no sales layer here that receives your enquiry and passes it on to production. The person who answers the phone has stood at the casting machine, knows the tools in the hall and knows what can actually be done with them. When you ask whether the wall thickness in that corner is a problem, you do not get let me check with production — you get an answer.
It means short decision paths. An urgent job can be settled the same day. A process change requires no internal approval round. We can take on jobs that are too small or too fast for larger players to prioritise.
It also means we are not everything to everyone. We do not assign a dedicated project manager to every customer. We do not run round-the-clock shifts. We do not have a quality department with its own organisation chart. If you need a supplier who can provide that, it is better to know before you send the enquiry than after.
Eighty years of casting and thirty years of machining sit in these five heads. That is real competence, hard to copy and even harder to buy. But it sits in people rather than in a system — and that is worth being honest about.
Reliable, confidential, sustainable
Three words we have used for a long time. Here is what they mean in practice rather than in a speech.
Reliable
Your tool sits at one address in Norway. The series can keep running for as long as the product lives, and we maintain the tool along the way. The spare part in ten years comes from the same die.
Confidential
Every product example on this site is anonymised. That is not accidental — the customer design belongs to the customer. We will sign a non-disclosure agreement before you send anything, if you want one.
Sustainable
Recycled aluminium as the main feedstock, a closed water loop, recovered waste heat and solar panels. We hold no EPD and no carbon accounting, and we say so rather than dressing it up.
What we do not do
The shortest answer to who we are is often what we are not.
- We have no products of our own. Everything we make was designed by a customer. We are a pure contract manufacturer and we never compete with our customers.
- We do not build casting tools. We procure them through our preferred tool suppliers, matched to our machines, and maintain them afterwards. The customer owns the tool.
- We do not do sand casting. Large, heavy structural castings are not our field.
- We do not take one-off parts without tooling. The model presupposes a series. If you need a single part, machining from billet or 3D printing is the right route, and we will say so.
- We do not anodise or coat in house. It is outsourced, we manage the step, and we state the added lead time in the quotation.
- We hold no ISO certification. Not ISO 9001, not ISO 14001, not IATF 16949. That closes some doors, and we do not dress it up.
Come and see us
Take exit 10 from the E6, about an hour south of Oslo. Call ahead and we will show you the production floor.