Sustainable steel

ehind every great custom fabricator is an even better training program set in motion by the senior fabricators and shop managers. Ci Metal Fabrication, a custom industrial metal fabrication shop based in Meridian, Mississippi, has long relied on detailed training and education programs within its shop.

Ci Metal Fabrication uses talented and experienced mentors, averaging more than 30 years of industry experience in presswork, power forming, welding, cutting and shearing, to usher in the next generation of metalworkers.

hile working, people often run into problems. And those problems need solutions. This basic concept is at the root of Sawblade.com CEO Chris Luke’s new online manufacturing training library, Sawblade University. Luke says he began to assess the idea of a collection of educational videos when talking with students at trade shows. “They’re a pulse on what’s going to happen in the future.”

Sawblade.com was already producing videos for customers detailing how best to cut specific materials, Luke says. For instance, if an aerospace manufacturer showed interest in how to successfully cut a specific grade of titanium, “they send us a small piece, we put it on the saw and produce an entire video for that company—a video they can keep and review and show employees.

he offshore wind energy industry will be a “major contributor” to the post-COVID-19 economic recovery worldwide, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. Through 2030, the council forecasts that more than 205 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity will be added globally—a 15-gigawatt increase from GWEC Market Intelligence’s pre-pandemic forecast.

However, the development of new technologies, manufacturing and construction procedures, and the increase in the size of wind farms and turbines, means new installations are being set up farther from the coastline. As a result, the design for the structures that support the turbines has evolved to become bigger, thicker, longer and heavier to accommodate these great ocean depths.

ow many job shops could lose a customer that accounted for 98 percent of their business and recover in just a few years? Elm Machining was faced with that scenario several years ago. The company confronted this threat by making some hard decisions, placing additional emphasis on fabrication, investing in the proper equipment and dedicating itself to the hard work that it took to not only survive but also prosper.

n September 2020, while much of the world remained shut down and in limbo, Fab Tech Wastewater Solutions LLC invested in a new Roto Hornet 1000 CNC plasma pipe cutter to meet a new customer’s demand. “We have a new customer that is going to send a volume of pipes to work on—plus, [we wanted] a general upgrade as well,” says David Umphenour, administrative services manager at the Warrenton, Missouri-based fabricator.

sales call, a downpour and a missed cutoff outside Greenville, Texas, changed the course of events for Steve Lester, his wife, Sherrill, and his father, Pat.

“I was in the metals business at the time,” says Steve Lester. “I worked for a mill. I decided to visit QMF Steel Inc. It was a mom-and-pop operation with two barns full of metal. A terminal cancer diagnosis prompted the owner’s wife to try and persuade me to buy their business. At the time, I thought it was the worst idea I’d ever heard.

hen Bill Taylor founded Continental in Los Angeles in 1960, the company became a go-to abrasives manufacturer for distribution houses across the west. Years later, the company was sold and subsequently, dissolved. In 2013, Taylor’s daughter Cindy; son-in-law Gary; and his grandsons, Graydon, Gavin and Garrett, relaunched Continental Abrasives, thus reestablishing its presence on the West Coast with plans to go nationwide.