History

Our company history leads back to the years 1930s, in a valley at the foot of Mount Rosa, where a young craftsman cuts and bends sheet metal for the roofing and the plumbing works, to be installed in the local textile factories.
The tools he uses are very simple: scissors and wooden mallets for bending. The material is available only in small blanks, that must be joined by means of copper nails and welded.

This young craftsman is Mario Gabella. He soon realizes the difference between his hard manual work and the mechanization of the factories where he operates. He begns to look for more rational and functional ways of working, even traveling abroad. But it is thanks to his own ingenuity that many tools are developed.

World War II interrupts his projects and he has a very hard time, wandering through Europe.
Anyway, this terrible experience becomes a source of inspiration for him: he comes into contact with other cultures and technologies and has the time for long meditations.
Returning to Italy, he is deeply convinced that the future of sheet metal working is the use of coils: the steel manufacturers will supply coils directly to the final users. For this reason, there will be a need for small and very flexible.
In his workshop, enlarged and re-organized, he starts the production of the first bending machines for thin materials, longer than the usual: up to 8 meters. They are welcomed with great interest in the Italian market.

Later, a new revolution involves the sheet metal cut, with the mobile heads slitter, the only machine whose widths can be automatically positioned with numerical control or, in a simpler way, with a motor. It is the result of long studies and of continuous experience done cutting millions of meters of different materials.

Fifty years after the first development of this machine, the slitter has now reached an enviable reputation and a very high degree of reliability. Its functioning depends on a very precise knowledge of the applicable tolerances, on the first-class materials we use and on technological secrets and solutions.

Gabella Macchine remains today a family-run company. The second and third generations of the family are continuing Mario’s work with the same passion, intuition and attention to detail.

In the recent years, the latest electronic and engineering developments were added, getting products that are praised by customers and admired in exhibitions all over the world.