Blog posts of '2014' 'July'

The National Association of Manufacturers reports a 3.5% overall increase in manufacturing production over the last 12 months. Fabricated metal products helped fuel the growth by showing a 6.2% increase from June 2013 to June 2014. You can find weekly industry trends and analysis at the National Association of Manufacturers website.

Albina Co., Inc. is an industry leader in bending bulb flat material.  Albina has been a supplier of bent bulb flat material for ship and barge building applications for the past 3 decades.  With the ability to bend bulb stem in and bulb stem out, Albina can take care of any of your stiffener needs for your next barge or shipbuilding project.  If you are unfamiliar with bulb flat material, it is a hot rolled product that looks like flat bar with one end having a “stem” sticking out.  Tata Steel referenced on their web site that bulb flat is far superior to other forms of steel (i.e. angle or flat bar) for stiffeners in both ship and barge building projects. Tata went on to indicated the following: “Cost savings begin from the moment you specify bulb flats for your project. These profiles have an excellent strength to weight ratio, a low paint area with no need for edge grinding prior to painting and require fewer lugs compared with alternative plate stiffeners. In-service costs are also reduced for the life of the vessel or structure. That’s because the rounded edges of bulb flats minimize paint degradation and their shape prevents the buildup of corrosive debris. They are also easy to access for inspection, cleaning and maintenance.” “The special shape of bulb flat profiles delivers an unrivalled strength-to-weight ratio, giving you the desired buckling resistance at a lower weight than is possible with flat bars or structural angles.” If you are working on a barge or ship building project and require stiffeners, call Albina, we are experts in bending bulb flat material.

This year's winners of the Metal Architecture Design Awards span the spectrum of cool and unusual projects. There are two wineries, a church, an ER and even a piece of hanging artwork at the Mall of America among the winners. Read "Honoring the Best of the Best" at Metal Architecture.

Sustainable architecture and ecological design projects were honored at the 2014 AIA National Convention in late June. Albina Co., Inc. was the bender/roller for the exterior curved tube steel on the facade of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland, Oregon. Albina rolled 155,000# of Tube Steel 10" X 10" X .375" WALL A500 GR B rolled to a 34’ 0” outside radius and Tube Steel 10" X 10" X .625" WALL A500 GR B. rolled to a 34’ 0” outside radius. To maximize the highest level of quality on these bends and minimize distortion (concavity and crush), Albina used our in-house designed internal support system for rolling. This internal support essentially turned the hollow section into a solid section resulting in the highest level of bend quality. The members we rolled were supports for the fascia of the building.

Albina Co., Inc. has recently been awarded the bending for a hi-tech data storage facility. Albina did a great deal of steel bends for a previous data storage facility completed in 2012. The most recent data storage facility is scheduled for completion next month. The bending for the recent data storage facility amounts to almost 150,000# of structural steel and HSS. The bending for this project is very difficult and certainly needs to be processed by a bending expert. The first project came to Albina as our customer had 100% confidence in our abilities to perform as promised. With the first project being a smashing success for our customer we were awarded the bending for the second (and larger) Data Center. Materials on this project consist of the following: TS 8” x 4” x .375” wall rolled the Hard-Way to a very tight 11’ 2½” outside radius. Tolerances for these parts are critical and are being checked to a full scale layout. W14 X 26# A992 being split to W7 x 13# and also rolled to an 11’ 2½” outside radius. W12 X 22# A992 being split to W6 x 11# and rolled to a matching 11’ 2½” outside radius. This is a fast track project. Our valued customer came to us with tight schedule requirements. Albina has committed to working day and night shifts (including weekends) to help expedite the project and meet our customer’s needs. When dealing with Albina anything is seemingly possible!

Unlike "reshoring" — which implies bringing jobs back to the United States that had previously left — many small businesses are "new-shoring" their products, which means starting from scratch right here in the States. Rich Thomas wrote an article titled "Why ‘New-Shoring’ Is the New School of Manufacturing for Small Business". He claims it may cost a little more, but by locally prototyping and building the first few batches of your product close to you, you’ll be able to see and fix potential issues and confidently get your item to mass market.

Why choose Albina? • Full range of materials offered (small to large) and all types of material. • Industry leading distortion • Stringers bent out of true HSS material (not two pieces of channel or various sections of plate welded together) • No filler materials used • Fair pricing • Unmatched service and attention to detail. If you require a “spiral” staircase you really need to partner with Albina on your next project. You will be in good hands!

Albina Co., Inc. is a world leader in helical bending.  Helical bent items are typically used as spiral stringers in “spiral” staircase projects.  The sections that Albina bends are for the stringer supports in a staircase for both residential and commercial construction projects.  The stringers Albina provides are unique in that we are not limited in size of material we work with nor the type of material.  We also do not “stuff” the stringer material with other “filler” type materials (which drastically increases the weight of your final product) to successfully bend.  We are able to bend all of our materials empty and are still able to contain distortion, crush and deformation- offering the highest quality end product in the industry.  We can bend HSS (square or rectangular material), Channel and Pipe from the smallest members to some of the largest sections available. In fact, we have provided stringers bent out of TS 20” x 12” x .500” material. Albina can also help with your fabrication needs! If you don’t want to deal with the headaches of fabrication and would prefer getting a fabricated assembly, we can help with that too!

Albina Co., has two feature national ads in two of the industries most well known publications during the month of July. Albina is a member of NOMMA (National Ornamental and Misc. Metals Association) and we actively advertise in their member publication "Fabricator." This month, we have highlighted several high profile steel spiral staircases that we have been a part of. You can view our ad in the online version of "Fabricator" on page 29. In addition, we have highlighted several structural tube bending and fabrication projects we have been a part of in "The Fabricator." See our ad here ""Structural Tube Bending and Fabrication".

School construction this time of year is always very busy. Albina has been fortunate to work on a number of national school projects. These projects consist of anything from improvements on existing schools to new construction. We were recently awarded the contract for bending all of the wide flange for the Pueblo West High School out of Pueblo, Colorado. This project includes 27,000# of wide flange all being bent the easy way by Albina, material consisting of W12 x 26#, W12 x 335#, W14 x 34# and W24 x 76#. When contractors and fabricators require bending for school projects they know to come to the best in the industry- Albina Co., Inc.