Silvercraft Products

Silvercraft Products Limited is a family business in operation since 1974 as a result of a terminated partnership between Mr. Francis Xavier Baldacchino, a mechanic from Qormi, and the proprietors of FGP Limited. Mr. Baldacchino, used to work with sheet metal, came across fibreglass through a friend in the 1960s, which had brought him a sample of the material which was relatively new for the Maltese market. Fibreglass is strictly speaking "molten glass extruded through ultra fine openings measured in microns, resulting in thread-like formations which can be woven together to form a rough cloth or patch. Different resins can then be added to this fibreglass material, allowing it to be forced and pressed into moulds" (definition from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-fiberglass.htm). Mr. Baldacchino quickly set up a team of three women, one of whom his own daughter, and started working the material into kitchen sinks even before FGP in the late 60s. From sinks Mr. Baldacchino went on to produce small boats which then sprung into one of the products Silvercraft Products Limited has for many years been famous for in the Maritime Industry - Speed Boats and Traditional Kajjaks. Coincidentally, it was also the origin of the name for the company as it was named after the very first 38 foot cabin cruiser Mr. Baldacchino produced. The Maritime Industry grew such that more and more employees had to be employed to meet the growing demand. Mr. Baldacchino, essentially an inventor and innovator by character, experimented with fibreglass to produce different products. In 1979, Silvercraft ventured in its first export, to Saudi Arabia by producing a cable channel for the airport as a sub-contractor to Sinclair Associated of England. One major local achievement of Silvercraft Products Ltd. is the installation of the Reverse Osmosis Plants of the island, a project entrusted to Polymetrics of the United States of America, who commissioned the joining of the fibreglass pipes at Ghar Lapsi site to Silvercraft in 1979, plants which are still in operation and are from time to time maintained by the company. The craftsmanship of the employees at Silvercraft was such that the whole fibreglass manufacturing of the Reverse Osmosis Plant of Pembroke was entrusted entirely to the company. This led Silvercraft Products Limited to move away from the domestic sector and focus mainly on specialised industrial markets related to fibreglass production developing Malta's first filament winding machinery, machinery which has been exported to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where the company helped set up two fibreglass product producing companies. Since then, Silvercraft has channelled its energies into a diversification of products ranging from small domestic tanks to sumps, from grease traps to pipelines of different dimensions, from Sewage Treatment Plants to custom designed fibreglass products.