Star
Hydraulics was established in December 1983 by Paul Shillam, who recognised the
need for an independent servo valve repair facility following numerous requests
from servo valve users whilst working at Dowty Hydraulics.

Moog
(who had given Dowty’s the licence to manufacture servo valves for Europe)
initially supported Paul’s servo valve repair business by supplying Star
Hydraulics with unlimited spare parts to service and repair servo valves.

It
is with thanks to Moog that Star Hydraulics Ltd has grown into the successful
British Manufacturing Company it is today. Without Moog’s initial support of
supplying Star with spare parts, Star Hydraulics Ltd would have never been
born.

Unfortunately,
Moog eventually changed their policy of supplying spare parts to independent
servo-repairers which effectively forced Star Hydraulics to develop their own
servo components and inevitably a complete range of servo valves.

Star’s
now famous Sapphire Technology™ has been proven to reduce ‘ball glitch’ - the
term given to the effect on the valves performance due to ball wear.This
in-house expertise enabled Star to investigate the repeated failures of
traditional valves and the wear on a particular component, a tiny steel ball,
was found to be the main culprit. Star found that by replacing the steel ball
with a Sapphire ball it vastly extended the life of the servo valve.

Star’s
range of servo valves have proven to be incredibly successful, coupled with
hydraulic oil cleanliness & system maintenance training, plus the benefit
of Star's Sapphire Technology™, Star servo valves are doing many billions of
cycles without the need for repair.