The event is—”Curved Rails: From Field to Fabrication” August 9th & 10th in Erie, Colorado.
Living Design Studios will be the host shop. This shop is the home to Jonathan Falk who will be the 2020-2021 NOMMA President.
Terry Barrett, Pinpoint Solutions, and Matt Olseng, MDO Welding and Fabrication, will be the presenters. They will teach the basics of field measuring; transforming the measurements in to shop drawings and getting the project “off the paper” and into physical form. Matt will demonstrate fabrication of curved rails and share tips for success.
Albina was thrilled to be able to donate some curved steel parts to be used in the seminar. Visit the NOMMA Homepage to register!
We just returned from the happiest place on Earth (Disney World) and while we should be rested after 9 days of vacation, we are exhausted!!! Disney, just like everything else in our lives, involved strategic planning almost six months in advance just to ensure we could have a hot meal and ride the most popular rides. And even with all that planning and preparation, Jaime and I found ourselves constantly evaluating the efficiencies of the parks, the bottlenecks we faced, and how we thought Disney could improve the experience of park-goers. Don’t get me wrong, we had great family time, and Disney is one of the most successful companies around, but I think the lesson we took away from the trip is that even if we think we have things all figured out and are doing things the way we think you want them done, we can’t rest on our laurels and we need to be constantly evaluating how we can make your experience in doing business with us an enjoyable (and dare I say “magical”) one.
On our trip, we were constantly on a roller coaster, jumping from one ride to the next, never a dull moment. That is the same feeling we have about how the spring is shaping up here at Albina Co. We have so many great and interesting projects going on right now! We are rockin’ & rollin’ on so many different types of material! So many industries…agricultural, structural, aerospace, mining, food processing, and so much more! Below are just a few projects we shipped out recently!
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
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!
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!
AISC recently released the first ever Design Guide of its kind in the United States offering information on the fabrication, design and detailing of curved members and we are offering you a FREE DOWNLOAD of the Design Guide from AISC.
Design Guide 33 was a collaborative effort of the members of the AISC Bender/Roller committee. We worked together for many years to provide this invaluable resource for the industry. Modern Steel Construction recently published an article titled “Design with a Twist” in the October 2018 Issue giving a brief highlight of topics covered in the Design Guide. AISC also created a very insightful webinar for their continuing education program titled “Design of Curved Members.” If you are interested in obtaining a print copy of the Design Guide to assist with your efforts in specifying curved steel members, please contact us and we will be happy to get one to you!
AISC recently released 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 was a collaborative effort of the members of the AISC Bender/Roller committee. We worked together for many years to provide this invaluable resource for the industry. Modern Steel Construction recently published an article titled “Design with a Twist” in the October 2018 Issue giving a brief highlight of topics covered in the Design Guide. AISC also created a very insightful webinar for their continuing education program titled “Design of Curved Members.” If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the Design Guide to assist with your efforts of specifying curved members on your next project, please contact us.
SteelDay is just a week away on Friday, September 28th! Don’t forget to register for a SteelDay event near you at www.steelday.org/events. If you can’t get to a physical location, AISC is offering a free webinar titled “Birth of the Steel Skyscraper”.
This year marks the 10th Anniversary of SteelDay, the steel industry’s largest educational and networking function of the year. If you would like to look back at some of the past webinars offered by AISC from 2011-2017, please log on to aisc.org to check them out!
The AISC (American Institute of Steel Construction) recently issued a press release announcing a dozen structural steel projects that have earned recognition in the 2018 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel awards program (IDEAS2). Albina Co., Inc. was the steel bender of choice for the Merit Award winner UC Davis Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, Calif. To read to full press release, please visit the AISC website. The AISC has also produced a YouTube video titled “IDEAS2 Awards FAQ” highlighting the main criteria for steel buildings that are considered as potential candidates to receive an IDEAS2 award.
Building The Spheres was a project that began in February 2013 and just this month The Spheres will officially open. Numerous Pacific Northwest businesses collaborated to make The Spheres possible. The Spheres website is officially live and you can explore not only the building and the many milestones during conception and construction, but also the very unique plant life that inhabits The Spheres. Albina Co., Inc. was the steel bender/roller for the Curved Steel Bio-Sphere buildings in Seattle, WA. Albina bent 750,000# and 1,050 pieces rectangular tube steel bent the easy way and a portion bent off-axis. Almost 8 miles of welding work and grinding was avoided because of Albina’s ability to bend a portion of the project. Almost NO correction was needed during fabrication or erection as the bends fit to the fixtures within 1/32nd of an inch!
In early December, we received notification from the American Institute of Steel Construction that the UC Davis Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, of which Albina Co., Inc. did the structural steel bending for, was selected by the AISC awards jury to receive the 2018 IDEAS2 Merit Award in the $15-$75 Million Category. In all, the jury selected 12 projects for the recognition this year for the IDEAS2 Award, the U.S. Steel Industry’s highest honor for building design. Four projects received the National Award, while six projects received the Merit Award, and two projects received the Presidential Award, one for excellence in adaptive reuse and another for excellence in erection engineering. AISC will announce the winning projects as NASCC: The Steel Construction Conference in Baltimore this spring.
