About The O-Ring Store LLC
We started as a paintball shop.
Back in 2007 we opened a small paintball shop and field here in the Lewis-Clark Valley. Paintball markers run on O-Rings, lots of them, and we got tired of how hard they were to buy. Long waits, minimum orders, catalogs that assumed you already knew what you needed. So we opened a little online shop on the side and called it The O-Ring Store. Simple name, simple idea: make getting O-Rings easy.
2008: The Year That Tested Us
Then 2008 hit. If you were in business that year, you remember it. The economy fell out from under everybody, and paintball is the kind of thing families cut first when money gets tight. The paintball shop and field went from a great livening to leas than $100 a month in total sales, very bad. We had to close Christmas Day 2008. We moved all the left over parts and our small inventory of O-Rings to the house. It was very scary for the entire family.
But a funny thing happened while the paintball side struggled. The O-Ring orders kept coming. Machines break down whether the economy is good or bad. Farmers still needed seals for their equipment. Shops still needed to fix their hydraulics. People repairing things instead of replacing them needed O-Rings more than ever. That taught us something we have never forgotten: O-Rings are not a luxury, they are what keeps working people working.
So we made the call. We left the paintball industry, closed the field in 2009 and bet everything on O-Rings. It was a hard decision at the time. It turned out to be the best one we ever made.
From a Little Shop to the Port of Wilma
Nobody handed us this. We earned it one order at a time, and we outgrew building after building doing it.
We started in our garage for the first year. Moved to the little shop the second year, a 1,500 sq foot converted gas station. From there we learned to be lean and tough, packing orders ourselves and learning the hard lessons of scaling up: inventory that would not fit, shipping cutoffs we barely made, growing pains everywhere you looked. When we outgrew that, we moved to a bigger shop medium shop of 5,000sq feet, a mansion. And when we outgrew that one too, we built where we are today: our 13,000 square foot facility at 1847 Wilma Drive in the Port of Wilma, Clarkston, Washington.
Here is the part that still makes us shake our heads: we had barely settled into this building before we needed more room. Shortly after moving in, we had to expand again, adding another 8,000 square feet for O-Rings, hydraulic seals, gaskets, and seal kits. Outgrowing your buildings is a good problem to have, but it is still a problem, and we have solved it more than once.
Today we stock over 100 million O-Rings and seals, we are ISO 9001:2015 certified, and we ship worldwide. Not bad for a paintball shop and a group of great people to work with.
Why O-Rings Deserve This Much Effort
An O-Ring might cost a few cents. The machine it sits in might cost a few million. When a seal fails, nobody remembers what they paid for it. They remember the downtime, the leak, the warranty claim, the crew standing around waiting on a part.
A small part with that much riding on it deserves a supplier who takes it seriously. We measure right, we count right, we document right, and we ship fast, so the cheapest part on your bill of materials is never the one that lets you down.
A Family Business, In Every Sense
We are a family business, and we mean that literally. Marty Frostad runs the company alongside his sons Daro, our Sales Manager, and Darion, our Purchasing and Operations Manager, Janevea as the Accounting and Controller, Mackenzie in ISO/Quality, and Anson, Sophie, Autumn and Karlye in sales, Channah taking care of B/O and post shipped support. In the warehouse we have Joseph, Kayleigh, Ella, Dylan, Alexis, Chase, Mika, Sam and Stephen counting, shipping and assembling along with Tiny Tina and Betsy our automated bagger and counting machines. A crew of people we treat like family, good and bad. When you call (208) 413-6377, you get a real person (or our AI) in our building who can walk over and put eyes on your order. No call centers, no ticket queues, no runaround.
Small-town does not mean small-time. It means when we tell you something, you can take it to the bank.
What You Get When You Order From Us
Accurate counts, every time. Ever opened a bag of 1,000 O-Rings and gotten 940? We have heard that story more times than we can count. Our vision systems, automated counting, and quality people who genuinely care mean the number on the bag is the number in the bag.
Certification as a standard, not an upsell. Every order ships with a Certificate of Conformance including cure date and lot numbers, recorded in our ERP for full traceability, at no extra charge. Manufacturer certs are available for Mil-Spec and aerospace O-Rings.
Olypsys® measurement verification. Our proprietary Olypsys® technology uses machine learning, AI, and a standard cell phone camera to measure O-Rings with precision manual tools cannot touch. It is one more set of eyes making sure what leaves our dock matches what you ordered.
The most accurate vulcanized O-Rings in the world. We custom splice and vulcanize O-Rings to your exact specification, every one verified with Olypsys® certification. Odd size, huge diameter, specialty compound, we build it right.
Huge selection, in stock. AS568 sizes, metric sizes, hydraulic seals, gaskets, O-Ring kits, and specialty compounds. Over 60 million pieces on the shelf means most orders pick, pack, and ship fast so your line keeps moving.
Release programs for OEMs. If you build product, we can hold your inventory and release it on your schedule. It is one of our specialties, and it takes supply chain headaches off your plate.
Honest pricing. Quality parts at competitive prices, with quantity discounts posted right on the website. No games.
The Next 100+ Years
Plenty of companies plan quarter to quarter. We plan generation to generation. This is a family business with the next generation already running sales and operations, and we intend to be here for another 100 years.
That is not a slogan, it is a work plan. We have projects lined up starting next year and a long list behind those: more capacity, better technology, and more ways to make getting O-Rings easy for the people who keep this country running. The paintball shop taught us how to step back an rethink what we are doing. The hard years taught us how to endure. The next hundred years is what we are building for now.
Our Promise Is Simple - We make getting O-Rings easy!
Thank you for trusting us with the small parts that keep your world running. We do not take it lightly.
The O-Ring Store LLC
1847 Wilma Drive, Clarkston, WA 99403
Phone: (208) 413-6377 • oring@theoringstore.com
ISO 9001:2015 Certified • CAGE Code 72PR0 • Established 2007