An Iowa firm will be providing the U-S mint with some of the materials to make the state’s 25-cent piece. Company President Dan Kowalczyk says P-M-X of Cedar Rapids makes high-quality alloys used in a long list of products. Those products include builders hardware like lamps, doorknobs and “kick plates,” computer parts, zippers, and ammunition. Kowalczyk says the company’s products include thin layers of metal, rolled up in coils that are used to make coins for the U-S mint. It’s a roll anywhere from half an inch to 26-inches wide, weighing up to 10,000 pounds, rolled up metal the thickness of a coin. Kowalczyk says P-M-X doesn’t make money…that process is all done at the mint. The company supplies metal for many mints in many countries, and had to meet quality standards to become one of only two suppliers for making U-S coins. He says the company’s a huge recycler, using tons of scrap copper and alloy products, and he mentions that 98-percent of all copper ever refined is still being used. PMX has 435 employees and also sells metal products to private industry, where Kowalczyk says they were hit by the recent recession like so many others were.He’s cautiously optimistic and thinks the current recovery will continue, and he says things are better than they’ve been in the last year and a half. The Cedar Rapids metal company will also provide the metal used in making Iowa’s state quarter, once the committee’s done choosing a design and it’s time to “strike” the coins.