Accent Ornamental Iron &
Powder Coating Co.’s origins
date back to 1952
when Stanley Stylski, the son of a
Polish immigrant, started Modern
Iron Works, an ornamental iron
shop, at the age of 16. Stanley sold
the business in 1954 to proudly
serve the U.S. Army during the Korean
conflict.
After his tour of duty, Stanley
returned to work for Modern Iron
Works. In 1961, though, he left
there to start his own ornamental
iron business, Allied Iron Works.
Stanley’s oldest son, Michael Stylski,
began working for his father at
Allied Iron Works in 1964 at the
age of 7, and was a full-time employee
by the age of 16. “My dad
sold me half of his business for
$1,” Michael recalls. He continued
to work with his father until
age 25, when he decided to explore
other career paths. “So I sold him
back my half of the business for
$1,” Michael says. “I wanted to explore
a little, so I drove a truck for
a while. Then I was a warehouse
foreman, and at one point I worked
for the electric company.” For five
years, Michael tried his hand at a
few unrelated fields.
“I always had a job,” Mike Stylski
says. “But I was drawn back to
the iron business, and so I decided
to start my own company when I
was 30 years old. Today, that company
is Accent Ornamental Iron
& Powder Coating.” Michael was
the sole employee, and operated
the business from a two-car garage
in Anoka, Minn. In 1991, Michael
moved his family and his business,
to Cambridge, Minn., and
continued his operations from two
large pole buildings located on the
family’s 40-acre farm.
It wasn’t until 1995, though,
when Stylski began to offer powder
coating as a finish on his iron
fabrications. “I would offer powder
as an upgrade, and the customers
loved it,” Michael explains. He
would have to subcontract out that
finishing process, but it was worth
it at the time.
A couple of years later, in 1997,
Stanley Stylski—still operating
under Allied Iron Works—passed
away. Michael combined Allied
Iron Works’ customers and assets
with Accent’s. With this change,
Accent Ornamental Iron continued
to serve many third-generation customers
originating from Modern
Iron Works. Michael’s son, Michael
Jr., began to take a more active, fulltime
role within the company. Today,
Michael Jr. is the COO, and Michael
Sr.’s wife Kelly, who joined the
company in 2004, is now the CFO.
It was that same year—2004—
that Accent Ornamental Iron made
a final move to a 10,000 square foot
commercial building in the heart of
downtown Cambridge, Minn.
No More Jobbing Out
Right after Stylski began to offer
powder coating as an upgraded finish
in 1995, his call-back rate was
so low that it didn’t take long for
him to eliminate the use of liquid
paint altogether. By 1997, powder
coating had become the only finish
Accent Ornamental Iron offered.
“By 2004, I was spending $10,000/
month to sub it out,” he says.
Stylski knew he had to explore
bringing powder coating in-house,
so he let his fingers do the walking
on the Internet and came across
Powder-X by using a search engine.
“It was just dumb luck,” Stylski
says. “So I called them up and talked
with Joey Golliver who held my
hand through the seamless process.
The whole transaction was easier
than buying a new car,” he jokes.
Stylski bought the whole system at once, and was able to recapture
its cost within two years, he
recalls. For pretreatment, Stylski
now uses a gas Hotsy Steam Cleaner
and their chemicals to degrease
and phophatize. The original electric
boiler steam cleaner that came
as part of the system was peaking
the electric usage and the utility
company was going to raise the
rates tremendously.
As for the rest of the batch system,
the Col-Met booth is 10' x 10'
x 15' and easily accommodates the
house-built 3' x 6' racks that hold
the wrought iron. It also can accommodate
the 6' x 10' racks that
are used for bigger bulkier pieces.
The original gun that came with
the system was a Eurotec GCU400,
and it can still be used today, but
Accent added a Wagner EPG Prima
gun with a vibrating base. The Rapid
Engineering convection oven is
the last step in the process. Accent
uses a variety of powder suppliers,
including Cardinal, PPG, Axalta,
Tiger Drylac, Sherwin-Williams,
and Valspar, Stylski says.
Installing its own powder coating
system allowed Accent Ornamental
Iron to add “& Powder
Coating” to its company name.
Remember how much was being
spent in subcontracting the powder
finish? Now, Accent Ornamental
is the custom coater who gets
those jobs. “We currently powder
coat jobs for about 15 of our competitors,”
Stylski says.
In 2008, Stylski bought Olin
Wrought Iron, a manufacturer
of American-made balusters and
newel posts, which are made by
merging ancient blacksmithing
techniques with computer-controlled
technologies. “It’s a fabricator-
to-fabricator business,” he
says. “We thought long and hard
about that acquisition, but with
the amount of business we did
with them, it made sense to make
that purchase.”
If all of his businesses has not
kept Stylski busy enough, he also
is involved with his community.
He is both a mason at the Masonic
Lodge in Cambridge as well
as a member of the Chamber of
Commerce. “We are always doing
what we need to do to make their
events successful,” he says. Stylski
has donated a variety of projects
and products, including a custom-
made coffee table with a glass
top, cast-aluminum planters, and
custom ornamental coat racks and
towel racks.
All of Stylski’s hard work has
paid off. Business is good all
around. At Accent Ornamental
Iron, Stylski has nine employees
working for him. “I have no interest
in expanding,” he says. “We are
busy year round, we are at maximum
capacity, and I can cherry
pick my jobs.”
Sharon Spielman is editor of Powder Coated Tough Magazine. She can be reached at .
sspielman@powdercoating.org