Josef Martin is not an unknown entity to many people in Dundee. His family are well-known for their engineering prowess, and the shop that produced a world-first mining screen, which soon attracted world-wide attention, is now going places on the dusty plains of Hattingspruit.
The current managing director, Josef Martin, showed the Courier around their brand new factory and office complex being built at this moment.
According to their website, Dabmar Manufacturing has been a world leader in industrial screening machines for sorting, sizing, and conveying material for close to 50 years. Established by inventor Otto Martin, Mr Martin brought unique innovation and engineering to develop and manufacture the Resonance Screening System.
This system with it’s “Balanced Mass Design” still leads the industry as one of most effective and energy efficient machines on the market. Today Josef Martin, son of Otto Martin, heads the Dabmar corporation. As CEO, Josef Martin delivers the same quality products and outstanding service that Dabmar has built it’s reputation on.
From General Manager, Les Wright, to Chief Operating Officer, Douglas Johnstone, and all the hardworking craftsman and engineers, there is dedication to quality that has been unwavering since the company’s founding.
Dabmar’s Motto is, ‘Nearly Right is Not Enough,’ and anything short of precision manufacturing, and exceeding our clients’ expectations, is simply not acceptable.

Non-blinding
The innovation continued at Dabmar with the Bivitec system, a machine that truly is a 100% non-blinding system. This system redefined the processing of wet, sticky and difficult-to-screen materials. Dabmar also pioneered a Easy Change System allowing screen mats to be changed within minutes as they slide and snap perfectly into place.
The new building itself is 60 meters long and the crane well 12 metres high.They had to dig a foundation of five meters before the ground was good enough for their purposes. The building had been designed to house 50 ton-cranes, but at the moment they’re using 25 ton-cranes.
The steel work was designed by a company in Australia, and manufactured locally, in Glencoe, by Churchyard and Umpleby, and the electrical power supply was put in by Cusa Electrical, from Witbank, as no one local were able to handle the enormity of the design. Plans are in place to extend to a second phase, where lower capacity overhang cranes would be installed, but all the manufacturing would take place in the main assembly hall.

First of its kind

There is absolutely nothing like this construction in Northern Natal at the moment. Dabmar’s customers range across the world from Vancouver to Siberia, with the biggest export customer in the United Kingdom. The building will be a “green” building with no bricks and with very light thermal mass, which means that it will not be trapping the heat it may generate.
The building is also fitted with double-glazing windows, also cutting down on air conditioning, which means lower electricity bills.
They employ 70 people at the moment, all locals, but that number may soon increase. Dabmar’s new “World Headquarters” is certainly something different and unconventional, and with the current people at the helm, things are certainly set to improve. Dundee, and the whole of Natal, in fact, can be rightly proud of what is happening here.