Blog posts of '2016' 'October'

It's here! The 2016 AISC Code of Standard Practice for Steel Buildings and Bridges (ANSI/AISC 303-16) is now available as a free PDF download at www.aisc.org/2016code. Section 6.4.2 addresses chord / MO tolerances as it pertains to curved steel members. These tolerances are then applied to a bend radius. Albina's tolerances are equal to, or better than, the tolerances listed in the 2016 Code of Standard Practice for Steel Buildings and Bridges. Use Albina for your next bending project and let us prove it to you!  

Albina Co., Inc. recently donated to the Hunger Initiative called "Drive Away Hunger." This initiative is organized by the Sherwood FFA, Les Schwab Tire Centers, The Oregon Food Bank and Students at Sherwood High School. Donations help feed local families through The Oregon Food Bank. To learn more about this hunger initiative, please read a recent article published by Cascade Business News.

As you know, Albina has had some changes with our suppliers regarding the elbows we supply. Many of our customers have expressed interest in the old K&B style elbows that were discontinued when K&B closed this segment of their operations. Albina is excited to announce we have found a supplier that provides the old K&B elbows at a much better rate than we were previously charging. These elbows will still ship direct from the factory, and will be delivered with the same level of quality you have grown accustomed to. We strongly urge you to log onto our website and review the updated pricing at www.albinaco.com. We are confident you will be pleased with the savings. If you are not currently set up with a username and password, please let Jason@albinaco.com know and he will set one up for you. Albina appreciates your business and we look forward to servicing your needs.

Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center is the only nonprofit hospital in Fountain Valley, CA. Albina recently spiral bent and flat bent Tube Steel 16" X 8" X .500" WALL A500 GR B to 13’ 6” and 18’ 10” plan view radii the easy way to form the spiral stringers for the staircase. See the installation pictures below. Finished install pictures coming soon! [caption id="attachment_990" align="aligncenter" width="3024"] Spiral Staircase Being Lowered by Crane[/caption] [caption id="attachment_991" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Close Up of Install of Spiral Stringers[/caption] [caption id="attachment_992" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Orange County Memorial Hospital Spiral Stairacase[/caption]

"If you build it, they will come!" Well, we are building up our network of social media platforms and we want to invite you to follow us on whichever platform you prefer to use in your daily life.  Check out our latest pictures on Instagram! Read reviews, customer quotes, job updates, and more on Facebook and Twitter. Check out our videos on YouTube! See videos, pictures, and news story collections on our Google Plus page.  And if you are like my kids and prefer SnapChat, guess what, we can do that to! I know it took us some time to get used to this new way of communicating, as both my husband and I value a good face-to-face or phone conversation, but we have decided to dive right in and embrace it! We will continue building our network and posting great content, so we encourage you to check us out!

We follow-up with our customers after every job to make sure they were happy with their buying experience and the quality of the bent steel, as well as to simply say "Thank You for the work." We love feedback as we strive to make improvements every day in our in-office and shop procedures and processes. After following up on a recent job at Worthy Brewing in Bend, OR., we received the following response "It is us that is thanking you! The channels worked out great, and everyone is thrilled with the look. This is definitely one of the coolest structural projects I have had. You guys pride yourself in your workmanship, and that makes it so much easier on our end when we start with a quality product. Thanks again for the top shelf service."

We added two new rotary draw benders, a 6” Coast Wallace and a Pines #6, to our current inventory of equipment.  Rotary draw, or compression bending occurs when material is bent by rotating it around a bend die (and typically pulled or pushed over mandrel rod). A bend die is formed to fit a specific material size/type and at a specific diameter to fit the bend requirements. The material to be bent is clamped to the bend die and then is drawn, or pulled, around the bend die until the desired degree of bend is met. This method produces clean, tight radii bends and is mainly used by manufacturers or industrial companies.   The 6” Coast is a long machine with a carriage assist and overhead clamp. The machine has the capacity to bend up to 6” pipe down to an 18” CLR. The machine has tooling allowing it to bend 2-1/2”, 3”,4”, 5” and 6” pipe to numerous radii. [caption id="attachment_976" align="aligncenter" width="1632"] 6" Coast Wallace Rotary Draw Bending Machine[/caption] [caption id="attachment_977" align="aligncenter" width="1632"] Tooling for 6" Coast Wallace Rotary Draw Bending Machine[/caption]   The Pines #6 is a long machine with a customized back boost. This machine has the capacity to bend up to 6” pipe (and has the ability to bend thin wall material). In addition to round materials, this machine has the capacity to mandrel bend square and rectangular tubing, in fact it is currently under power to bend TS 12” x 4” x 5/16” wall the easy way to a 24” CLR.   We plan to fully tool these pieces of equipment allowing us to offer countless new radii options for our customers growing needs. The recent changes have greatly improved moral in our shop, increased our efficiencies, and decreased lead times in certain areas of the shop.

I wanted to share a story from a customer whom we recently completed a job for. The customer found us through the internet and was impressed with our web page layout because it showed that we do architectural work. He said working with the team at Albina was a "great experience." "This project was textbook from beginning to end. Once it arrived in Seattle it was installed within an hour. Albina's timing was unbelievable. We have another job coming up where the bent pipes need to be perfect and clean and strong as it has coils going through and it can't be crushed. Once the project is ready for release, Albina will be my first phone call." Most of the customers' work is done in the DC area so he thought shipping might be a problem on the upcoming job. We have a lot of customers on the East Coast and we have the ability to combine shipments which helps to keep the costs down. Don't let shipping be a deterrent.