It was time to relocate to Southwark to house the growing business. The company was incorporated and a close association with McPherson's Ltd. commenced.
Within a year of relocating to Southwark, World War II broke out and Hercus was to play its role in supplying machine tools to Australian industry. Under direction of the Dept. of Machine Tools & Gauges, Hercus designed and manufactured a range of machine tools including the 9" Swing Vee Bed Lathe, the No 4 Floor Drilling Machine, the 6" Power Hacksaw and a range of Grinding Machines.
The war now over, the factory and foundry were expanded and the range of machine tools expanded.
Demand for Hercus products was strong but due to material shortages and power restrictions delivery times blew out eventually being overcome around 1950.
The 1950's was a busy time and Hercus together with McPherson's outlets around Australia marketed a 6" Centre Lathe, No 9 Semi Universal Grinder, No 3 Tool & Cutter Grinder, No 4 Geared Head Floor Drilling Machine and the range of 9" Swing Lathes.
During the 1960,s, Hercus diversified by offering gear cutting and general engineering services. Hercus now was a major supplier of machine tools to McPherson Ltd. outlets, marketing the Hercus range to Industry and Education Depts. As a consequence, Hercus upgraded its range of machine tools that saw the introduction of a 14" x 40" Centre Lathe, the Craftsman 9" Swing Lathe, a No 9B Semi Universal Grinder and the building of the 10.000th 9" Swing Lathe.
At it's peak in 1967, Hercus employed 199 staff and exports topped out around 10% of sales.
1970, Hercus celebrated its 50th year of operation and continued to diversify with the introduction of a range Transmission products and the No 0 Horizontal Milling Machine, 1974 was an eventful year with the introduction of the Hercus 260 Centre Lathe and the first purchase of a Macson CNC Horizontal Milling Machine and a computer to program it. Late 1978 the association with McPherson's expired and the share holding returned to the family.
By 1980 there was a growing demand for small CNC machine tools and Hercus introduced a CNC Bench Lathe and Horizontal Milling Machine and exported to the USA. This period required considerable investment in money and skills to support the marketing and continual design improvements to the CNC range. Late in 1987, Hercus asked for assistance and the Durden Group provided an injection of capital and commenced to manage the company through a period of high interest rates. Major restructure happened, redundant plant and equipment disposed off and new CNC machinery purchased.
It was time to relocate to more modern premises that would allow manufacturing and general engineering to utilise the plant and computer systems efficiently, reducing costs. The relocation happened in early 1993 and took 6 months to complete
