LEWISTON – Rusty Vallee has a line on expanding his business.

Or maybe a thread would be more accurate.

The owner of Maine Thread Co. in the Pepperell Mill on Lisbon Street has just opened a retail section of his thread-making factory.

In business since 1958, Vallee once supplied the many local shoe shops with specialized thread and lacing needed for making footwear.

He has seen his customers move one by one to places such as India, China and the Dominican Republic, which is now where he ships most of his inventory.

But he still has plenty of stock, so much that he decided to open the Maine Thread Factory Store at the same location to give local folks a chance to buy specialty threads.

“I’ve got all this thread and people ask me all the time for it,” said Vallee. “So I decided to display it and cater toward the home sewers.”

More than 10,000 spools of thread are available at the store in every imaginable color. The spools range from 1,000 yards to 12,000 yards, versus the 100-yard spool that most home stitchers use.

He charges less than $8 for a 1,000-yard spool. He’s also selling canvas duck, vinyl, webbing, Velcro, and other notions and hardware used in sewing and craft making.

Vallee said he believes his company is one of only two in the United States that makes a special, wax-coated polyester thread. It’s used primarily in shoe making, but as Vallee’s Web site attests, it has many other uses as well.

A link from the company’s home page brings a Web visitor to a page titled “101 Uses for Waxed Thread.” No. 4 was submitted by a customer in Victoria, Australia, who uses it for bagpipe reeds. A customer from Algonac, Mich., uses it for motorcyle saddles. At No. 27, a Mercerville, N.J., customer uses it for suspended ceilings.

“People use it for everything,” he said. “It’s just incredible.”

Maine Thread makes 1,000 to 2,000 pounds per color of its specialty waxed thread. The raw material arrives from a dye house and is brought to Lewiston, where it is formed into plies, twisted, cut, waxed and tapered.

Although Vallee ships his finished products around the world, he wishes there were still a local manufacturing market for his waxed thread.

Aside from Allen-Edmonds in Lewiston and San Antonio Shoe in Pittsfield, all his shoe-making customers are from away.

“It’s too bad we don’t have any hand-sewing factories here anymore,” said Vallee. “They employed a lot of people.”

What: Maine Thread Factory Store

Where: 550 Lisbon St., Lewiston

Hours: 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday; 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday

Contact: 784-7770; mainethread.com