Tag Archives: steel bending

Albina Co., Inc. Celebrating 80 Years in the Steel Bending Industry!

Albina Co., Inc., located outside Portland, Oregon, has been providing customers with innovative, quality curved steel services and products since 1939. A family owned and operated, third generation business, run by Brian Smith, specializes in structural steel, tube and pipe bending, plate rolling and fabrication. Albina produces virtually any metal component that needs to bend or curve without the use of pre-formed fittings. Albina has provided curved steel for many high-profile buildings, stadiums and structures in the United States and Canada. Albina was the steel bender of choice on the recently completed Amazon Spheres in Seattle,Washington.

Albina is an industry leader in research and development and in 2018, purchased an MCP30 by Davi, the first type of bending machine in the United States with a “iRoll” smart camera system, allowing operators to view the part being bent compared to a radius template on the control screen.  The machine has the ability to “learn and remember” how different materials bend, where the rolls need to be positioned, and how much spring back is associated with a bend / material.

Brian and Jaime Smith by the Davi Machine
Brian and Jaime Smith by the Davi Machine

Albina also purchased a Bend-Tech Dragon A400 Plasma Cutter, a commercial grade CNC tube cutting ,engraving, and marking machine with the world’s most powerful CAD/CAM software. Other new equipment included new welders, jib cranes, induction heating coils, an electric forklift and 40 sets of tooling.

Albina was an instrumental player in the development of the first ever Design Guide of its kind in the United States offering information on the fabrication, design and detailing of curved members. Design Guide 33 “Curved Member Design” was released in October 2018 by the AISC Bender/Roller committee and is an invaluable resource for the industry!

Front Cover of Design Guide 33: “Curved Member Design”http://www.aisc.org/curvedsteel

Albina not only has one of the newest, most technologically advanced machines on the market, Albina also has one of the oldest, custom made bending machines ever created! In honor of the 80th Anniversary, Albina created a museum on site, called “The Smith-sonian”, honoring the family name and housing one of the first ever pieces of equipment that Albina owned and used to bend materials. Brian’s grandfather built the“Model-T” bending machine in the early 1940’s utilizing the transmission and differential from a “Model-T” Ford. This machine was used until the 1990’s to bend various materials such as pipe, tube, and square and rectangular hollow structural steel. “The Smith-sonian” is ready for visitors. Cheers to 80 Years!

The Smith-sonian Is Open for Visitors! 

Meet Brian and Jaime Smith-Happy New Year!

With every New Year comes excitement about the anticipation of what is to come, but also a bit of caution as to what may lie ahead. That is why we took two New Year’s pictures this year as a family! We must stick to what we know to keep our family and business strong, but we must also have the fortitude to take a leap when a project or challenge comes our way. The uncertain economic and social times we live in pose challenges each and every day, but I am confident in the companies we partner with, the people we work with, and the projects we invest in. Maintaining a strong steel industry, just like raising a strong family, is a collaborative effort. All hands on deck! Lets work together to get through these uncertain times and come out stronger on the other end!

And with every New Year comes reflection about the year prior. 2018 was one for the record books as we worked on many exciting curved steel projects. Albina was fortunate to team up with some great fabricators on a massive project in California this last year.  The project (to be named at a later date) consisted of 100’s of trucks, thousands of pieces and millions of pounds of bent steel.  This was the largest project Albina has processed to date and we look forward to working on more projects that have this level of complexity and excitement in 2019, the 80th Anniversary of our company!! Cheers to 80 Years! 

Albina Co., Inc. Teams up with US Marine Corps Reserve for “Toys for Tots”

President Brian Smith with Albina Co.’s Toys for Tots Donation

We collected toys this year for the U.S. Marine Corps,”Toys for Tots”. The team collected $488 in toys, and Albina Co.contributed $432, totaling $920.00 worth of toys! Way to go team!

Steel Spiral Staircase at the Ritz Carlton in Sunny Isles, Florida

Albina worked on a custom spiral staircase for the Ritz Carlton in Sunny Isles, Florida. This high profile spiral staircase was for a great customer out of Florida. When a top of the line luxury hotel needed top of the line bending, Albina was contracted. Yes! We shipped from Oregon to Florida to service the needs of our customer!

Albina bent TS 16″ X 4″ X .500″ WALL A500 GR B down to a 12’ inside radius (for the stringers and the landings). All bends were to AESS standards. Click here for images of the spiral staircase and the newly renovated hotel.

Curved Pipe for Oak Harbor Wind Sculpture in Bellingham, Washington

We partnered with Architectural Elements, a specialty metals fabrication shop in Bellingham, Washington to create this wind sculpture for the city of Oak Harbor. Albina bent 3½” SCH40 A53B ERW WHEELED- 10 lengths x 42 feet for the project. The sculpture was designed by Architectural Elements design engineer, Kyle Thomas and the photos below are © 2018 by Melissa Marteny.

Curved Steel Oak Harbor Wind Sculpture

Curved Steel Oak Harbor Wind Sculpture

Curved Steel Oak Harbor Wind Sculpture

Our Davi- MCP30 Master Bender Machine Has Arrived!!!

Our new machine is up and rolling! This master bender machine offers the new and innovative iRoll camera system, allowing operators to view the part being bent compared to a radius template on the control screen. This is a new way to make quality and consistent parts. Another innovation with the master bender is the machine’s ability to “learn and remember” how different materials bend, where the rolls need to be positioned, and how much spring back is associated with a bend / material.

This machine is a great fit for our shop, its size puts it right between our current Roundo R7 and R11 machines. Allowing us to reallocate work from two machines to three machines which should certainly help with our scheduling flexibility.

The MCP30 will allow us to bend up to 8” x 8” angle, 9” square HSS, W16 the easy way / W12 the hard way and 14” Sch20 pipe / 12” Sch40 pipe.

Davi Master Bender

Davi Master Bender

Davi Master Bender

Meet Brian and Jaime Smith- “Responsibility Equals Accountability Equals Ownership”

“Responsibility Equals Accountability Equals Ownership. A sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.”
-Pat Summit, Former Tennessee Women’s Basketball Coach

We live in “what used to be” the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon. We used to take our kids down to the waterfront and spend the day playing tourist in our own city, but those days are long over. Our daughter ran a race downtown recently and we were in shock at the state of our city…garbage everywhere, human excrement on the sidewalks and in the flower beds, it was embarrassing. Yet most people were content to walk over the trash, to turn a blind eye to the sad state of what used to be one of the most beautiful cities in the country. Our take was that our communities have lost their sense of responsibility, accountability and ownership. We don’t have the solution to change these things, I wish we did, as I know many areas of the country face the same challenges.

However, we can make a promise to you that we run our organization like we run our family. We treat our facilities like we treat our own home. We are respectful, responsible and safe in how we operate and we also understand that our ability to perform directly reflects on you and your company when dealing with your customers. We are accountable to our customers and vendors. We keep our word and we do what we say we can do, when promised, and to your satisfaction. We value our employees and our facility and we take great care of the people and property around us. We take great pride in our responsibility of servicing you and great pride in the ownership of Albina Co., Inc.

We recently went on a family trip to Kona, Hawaii. We work extremely hard and we play extremely hard! We zip-lined for the first time! All of us went upside down and no hands over spectacular river gorges, water falls and lava tubes! The next day, we swam with dolphins in the wild and also came upon a pelagic manta ray measuring 8 feet wide that had never been spotted in the Hawaiian waters! The kids had the amazing pleasure of naming the manta ray “Freedom”!

DOWNLOAD OUR SPECIAL OFFER! FREE WHITE PAPER ON STEEL BENDING!

Click thru to the brochures section of our website or on the image below to be directed to our website and download your FREE White Paper titled “EXPER(imen)T: Why You Should Use a Bending Expert vs. Buying Your Own Equipment. If you are a manufacturer or even a structural fabricator looking to purchase your own bending equipment, this is an offer you don’t want to miss!

whitepaper_useabendingexpert

We Have An Elevator Speech About Steel Bending!

Brian and I found ourselves in an elevator with Phil Knight, the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., and we stood there in silence, when all we wanted to do was give him a 2 minute “elevator speech” about everything that is wrong with youth sports these days and how we wanted to partner with him to create a fun and positive environment for all kids involved in youth sports. We choked! But the good news is, if we were standing in an elevator with world-renowned architect, Frank Gehry, we would have a 2 minute elevator speech about Albina Co., Inc. and steel bending to blow his socks off!

Albina Co. is a small family-owned steel bending company founded in 1939. We are located in Tualatin Oregon (just south of Portland) and are able to service the entire United States and Canada from our single location!

If you have the opportunity to do business with Albina Co., Inc., I KNOW you will not be disappointed. Albina Co., Inc. is unique from other bending companies for a number of reasons:

•We have a full range of state of the art bending equipment allowing us to provide our customers with a one stop shopping experience for bending. We can bend any type of material (pipe, tube, plate and all structural members) and virtually any size of material (from the very small to the very large).

•When processing a job, generating a quote, or providing bending consultation we are looking to be part of YOUR TEAM and not just a vendor. Our staff is made up of experts that are not satisfied with “good enough”; our staff strives to exceed your expectations.

•For every job we process a knowledgeable project manager is assigned as your point of contact for the duration of your project. This project manager will always treat you with honesty and integrity and provide you with timely and accurate information.

•Every order we process will be confirmed back to you and it will be reviewed by two members of management (production and QC) BEFORE we start production. This ensures that the most accurate information is delivered to the shop for processing.

•We have developed our own custom in-house management software that helps us service you during every aspect of your project. In addition to our in-house management software we also offer bending calculators on our website to assist with complicated bending computations such as spiral bending math.

•Our customers are our best sales staff- we frequently hear from our customers that bent materials provided by Albina are in better condition, less distortion and dimensionally more accurate when compared to previous experiences with competitors.

We would love to partner with you on your next project. Do not let distance be a deterrent, consider us your “local” bending partner and see how working with Albina Co. is unmatched by other bending companies.

We Get It, You’re Busy!-That is Why We Value Your Time (Video Conferencing At It’s Best!)

As 2017 winds down, we would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you. We hope to have the pleasure of doing business with you for many years to come. As we reflect on the many relationships we built upon this past year, the very interesting and high-profile projects we have been a part of, as well as the challenges and obstacles we faced along the way, we are thankful that we had such a great customer base to share those experiences with. We are looking forward to a new year that will certainly bring its own set of adventures, but we are ready!

WE GET IT…YOU ARE BUSY! THAT IS WHY WE VALUE YOUR TIME. It seems anymore that there isn’t just a “busy time of year”, every day, throughout the entire year is busy! We get that you are being pulled in many different directions with work, family, fun activities, etc. That is why we want you to know that WE VALUE YOUR TIME and boy do we have a gift for you this holiday season!

The visionary concept of “videotelephony” was first popularized in the late 1870’s in both the United States and Europe. The first systems were developed by AT&T Corporation, first researched in the 1950’s, and failed mostly due to the poor picture quality and the lack of efficient video compression techniques.

Today’s video conferencing systems are no longer just for webinars. Albina has invested in a system that makes video conferencing as simple as one click in an email. Even if you do not have a camera on your end, our video call allows you to see our smiling face, while we both can talk like a telephone call. But it can go much further than that!

We can share our screen with you to review drawings
We can link you to our shop cameras so that you can see your job in progress
We can teach you how to use the calculations application inside our website
We are still learning how this can bring even more value AND respect your time.

Click on this YouTube Video to see a brief example of what we are now able to accomplish (and at the same time, receive my holiday well wishes via video!)

Never tried a video call? Drop us a line and we would be happy to show you.