LEWISTON — It’s Monday morning inside one of the city’s sprawling, 1800s brick mills and a machine is cutting industrial felt Toyota parts. Another sews dog collars. Long green bags destined for a high-end croquet set sit in a pile turned inside out, awaiting inspection.

Over the decades, Allen Manufacturing and its precursor, Fancy Stitchers, have been large and small. It’s had one client and many.

Many works better.

“In the past 12 months, we’ve worked with 70 different customers,” said David Allen, 49, new owner and president. He’s a Hebron Academy graduate and a former Internet company executive.

“Quite frankly, I never expected to end up back here in manufacturing,” he said.

His father, Bob, started Fancy Stitchers, a contract sewing company, in 1974. It quickly moved from Auburn to Lewiston’s Hill Mill and eventually grew to 475 employees making 60,000 handbags a week for B. H. Smith in the 1980s.

The younger Allen’s job when he came home from college during the summer: head of zippers. He decided early against going into the family business for good and in 2000 founded a dial-up Internet company. He sold it in 2004 and worked for the new owner, commuting to Texas from South Berwick one week a month. When that company made another acquisition in 2010, Allen was out of a job.

“When that ended, I took the summer off. My father said, ‘What are you going to do?'” Allen said.

Bob Allen, meanwhile, had weathered ups and downs. Fancy Stitchers by the mid-’80s had grown to 50 cutting machines running two shifts a day and hundreds of sewing machines. Workers, many from the declining shoe industry, cut and sewed 300,000 square feet of leather — 6,250 cows’ worth — a week. Work hummed along.

Then suddenly, in the late 1980s, without notice, it didn’t.

B.H. Smith decided to go to China.

“Thirty days later, no orders came in,” David Allen said.

Fancy Stitchers nearly went under. Instead, it got leaner and diverse. Bob Allen, 82, keeps a folder of favorite sales, many of them orders that put the company on a new path: 3.8 million key rings, February 1989; 2.6 million luggage tags, January 1990; 2.2 million drawstring pouches, also 1990.

David Allen bought the company in April 2011 and renamed it. Bob is semi-retired, though he’s in the office almost every day.

“It’s been a little different, being boss for 50 years and not being boss anymore,” he said. “I can still add something.”

Allen Manufacturing now has about 30 employees, a mix of full- and part-time, who contract cut, stitch and assemble, most often with customer-supplied material.

“We sell labor,” David Allen said. And skill.

In January, Allen also bought AU Bags, a company that created a line of bags and totes sold to yacht clubs and boutiques. His factory now produces those, too.

“I never expected to be in manufacturing and I love it, probably as much as I enjoyed technology,” Allen said. “You’re making a physical product. Dial-up Internet isn’t making a physical product; it’s ones and zeroes.”

On the 17,000-square-foot factory floor, workers are spread around on any number of machines. Much of the fabric is die-cut, including the nearly dozen sizes of gray felt bound for new Toyotas.

During a tour, one employee assembled swatch books. Another inspected fabric sheep faces for a fleece sheep with a hole left in its belly for . . . something.

“With a lot of customers, we don’t know how it gets used and that’s OK,” Allen said.

Over the years, the company has made more than 3,000 different items. At any one time, it has seven to 15 ongoing projects.

Most customers come from word of mouth. Allen Manufacturing made felt button kits for someone who recommended them to a man who needs bulk fabric cut to size. One supplier, Maine Thread, passed its name to a company making headbands.

Allen said the company’s reputation has been built on quality. Of 50,000-plus pieces shipped in the past year, only two were returned for workmanship issues.

“Most people who come here, they want ‘Made in the USA.’ But they’re not the size they could (go to China), anyway,” Allen said.

They may be after 500 units. China wants orders in the thousands, he said. Many vendors require prepayment. Turn-around time is frequently months, not weeks.

“China does produce quality items; they absolutely can,” Allen said. “We produce better.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

David Allen, president and owner of Allen Manufacturing in Lewiston

In your own words, briefly describe:

Your market: My market is hard to describe because we don’t specialize in any one area. We have large customers and small. We’re a subcontractor for Toyota, one of the largest corporations in the world, and we also do work for a woman in Rollinsford, N.H., and we do maybe $200 a month for her.

Your biggest challenge: Finding customers. Since our market is so broad, and we do so many things — but they’re the little things a lot of people don’t see — it’s hard to find customers; it’s hard to know who needs our services.

In the past 12 months, your biggest success: There was a tsunami in Asia, as we all know, which impacted Japan severely, which impacted Toyota, which impacted us. If Toyota can’t get one computer chip out of Japan, they can’t build that car. If they don’t build that car, they don’t need the parts we cut for them. That tsunami in Japan affected a company in Lewiston, Maine. Our challenge was getting through that hiccup and replacing that business, and we were able to. And most of that (Toyota) business has come back.

Any suggestions regarding government regulation: Don’t give me more. Seriously. I’m not concerned about training programs; I’ll take care of that. Don’t regulate me more, don’t tax me more. Stay out of my way. I’ll stay out of your way.

Plan on hiring in the next year? It’s obviously based upon how much business comes in, and we don’t know when the phone is going to ring. I can say I will not hire more than 49 employees because of Obamacare; I won’t be able to afford it. I will not get to the point where we have to provide health insurance — can’t afford to.

Where do you see the company in 2022? The real answer, truly, is I don’t know. We’re not the size of a company that needs to plan 10 years out. We can do planning a year, year and a half at a time.

Comments edited for space.

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