International giant and hometown hero opens its doors for an exclusive look inside

Deep within South Africa, one company stands above all others, and is in many ways part of the glue that binds our community.

‘Glue’ is the operative word here, as the Pratley company has over the years revolutionised the adhesive industry, multiple times over, expanding into various other markets where they have also brought more innovations to the table than you could count.

Company founder, George ‘Monty’ Pratley, was born in Johannesburg in 1917. By 1948 he had started the Pratley Manufacturing and Engineering Company. In 1955, Monty purchased a new plant in Factoria, Krugersdorp, and it still stands as the company’s factory and headquarters today.

In the early 1960s, their trademark product, Pratley Putty, was released, quickly making Pratley a household name.

“Pratley Putty was the first of its type in the world and had the distinction of being used on one of the American space modules that landed on the moon,” the company’s spokesperson said. Its adhesives were also used later to go to Mars and to repair the Golden Gate Bridge in America, to name only a few of the company’s impressive accomplishments.

Today the company is run by Monty’s son, Kim Pratley and his two children, Charles and Andrew. Their catalogue now includes hundreds of first-class products which compete with international brands on the highest levels. Their electrical department produces high-grade electrical cable fittings and junction boxes, while their adhesives department regularly makes new strides in creating stronger and more reliable epoxies and other glues.

As proof of the reliability of their high-strength adhesives, a 13-ton yellow bulldozer was initially suspended in the air more than 25 years ago, but was brought down by a lightning strike in 2014. It is currently being held up in the air by two chains connected only by two steel plates that have been glued together with a layer of Pratley Wondafix, just outside the factory. Nearly five years later, the Pratley family isn’t at all afraid to stand under the dangling bulldozer for pictures to be taken.

The company is almost completely self-sustaining, creating all of its products and parts in-house. All glue, plastic, wiring, rubbers and so much more are formulated and produced by their own engineers and machinery.

“The performance of our products must, at all times, exceed that of any directly competing product on the world market,” said Kim Pratley on an open media day at their factory and laboratories.

The feeling gained while sitting in the conference room and walking through the premises can only be described as ‘homely’. There isn’t a time or a place where you feel anything less than welcome. The way that the buildings are set up, the way they’re furnished and the manner in which staff go about their work makes it as clear as daylight that this is a family-run business. The town they call home, Krugersdorp, is above all else a place for family and a place where anyone can feel at home, making it one of the most fitting locations for this company to operate from. With that in mind, it’s quite amazing that their homegrown products are envied by everyone the world over, and used by some very serious figures on the international stage. But still, the Pratleys don’t seem to ever want to move from their hometown.

Recent upgrades made to their main test and research laboratories will boost Pratley even further above their competition.

“One of these is dedicated to electrical testing, and has the distinction of having more state-of-the-art equipment than the South African Bureau of Standards itself, even to the extent that other accredited laboratories approach the company to make use of its advanced equipment,” a media statement from the company reads.