Merry Christmas, Enjoy the Holiday
Season and Happy New Year—2012
“Metfab Metals = Safety and a Whole New Shop (#3) (Our Light-Gauge Metal Shop)
SAFETYis such a fundamental idea that is seems like a self-evident concept. Who of us thinks he or she doesn’t know what is “safe”? Nothing we write here will change this much, if at all.
But there is whole governmental bureaucracy (NSC or National Safety Council) dedicated solely to spreading the word about how to improve safety in all aspects of our lives---business, home and personal. Indeed, the NSC recommends all extensive, specific principles from safety management to benchmarking to measurement, including employee surveys, overall shop and product assessments, risk reduction programs and detailed recording of safety ideals sought and actually resulting. Preparedness is the starting point and Safety/QC rewards are the ends. Here at Metfab Metals, we have reams of safety manuals, employee directives, reminder posters and reviews to guarantee shop safety. But just as significant is the safety our products bring to a project/jobsite. Our QC has been nigh on to perfect as our products always measure up to the specs the engineers/architects design. They WILL perform as demanded.
In the construction field, most of us are familiar with the mandates of OSHA, starting with the general stricture set out in section 5(a)—the General Duty Clause. As we are in the business of fabricating metals from the lightest of gauges to truly heavy steel members (see our earlier Newsletters re: 50’ long vertical AESS vertical bars* that will adorn and protect the entranceway to the new WTC4 issued in September, 2011 and January, 2010), safety is paramount from the day we receive the raw steel to the moment it’s off-loaded at the customer’s work-site and further to its decades of real performance as part of the job building.
Woody Allen is famous for landmark movies and maybe more so for some sayings from them. Perhaps his most famous (or infamous) remark is that “90 % of life is just showing up.” Others have quoted this as “90% of success”. New York Times columnist and author, Tom Friedman and his co-author** recently adverted to this idea (in order to compete with others worldwide) as something that “will not cut it anymore.” They concluded that we not only have to “show up” but rather we MUST do our work “with excellence that deserves attention.” This is the sense of the standard that we demand of our staff here at Metfab Metals and, as a result, that we supply to ALL our customers. Yes, we do first “show up”, but then we are guided by safety, motivated to excellence and always deliver far above average. Look at our “body of work”; all of it bespeaks these commitments----to our customers AND to ourselves. (See the many pictures attached to our earlier Newsletters on our website.)
We here at Metfab Metals want our customers to know that SAFETY is a primary concern here---not just in the products we supply but in all our operations to make those safe products. Look at what we just put in place as state-of-the-art production machinery.
We now have modern machinery operating---and operating safely----in three (3) different buildings, each doing an integral, but distinct, part of our overall product range. Newest among our safe operations is the new machine you see gleaming above. Now we daily make a whole range of light-gauge steel products. We can fabricate, bend, cut and deliver any light-gauge part your job calls for. Call us, email us drawings, come in and consult----we do it all. And we want to do it all for you.
Metfab Metalsis now your answer not only for quality custom and production Heavy-Gauge AND Light-Gauge metal parts, but also when your job requires a certified SBA in the CCR!
We always offer to work with our customers from the project concept stage to anticipate issues before fabrication, to suggest better ways to order, extrude, cut, drill, paint, finish, even stage and deliver and always to save time and money.
In 2011 and soon in 2012, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly count onMetfab Metals for full value for the price you pay. This is still our pledge and our commitment to all our customers.
For the novice, AESS, orArchitecturally Exposed Structural Steel, is finely-finished steel members (prepped, welded, filled, blasted, polished, and/or uniquely painted/finished) to be permanently open to the view and touch of all after the job is done. AESS work is never covered by sheetrock or otherwise hidden from public view. Our COO, Jim Murray, has been an integral part of early AESS projects, such BWI International Airport (erected over a decade ago)serving the Washington, DC/Baltimore area. There you can see the structural steel space frame with its threads, pipes and connections in plain view-------- and still shining like its original installed condition! Since then, Jim has overseen AESS jobs as varied as the American Jewish Heritage Museum a few years back in Philadelphia and the unique roof ladder coverage at 51 Louisiana in Washington, DC or the Borgata Casino overhang in Atlantic City, NJ. WTC4 and VCU will be even grander and more striking examples of this evolving art.
** That Used To Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011
November, 2011 Newsletter
BIM----Building Information Modeling--
It’s coming---ready or not!!!
We all know what the above item is----custom-fabricated steel parts----here in the form of curtainwall anchor parts common to modern building construction. But, if you are my age or older (God forbid!), you may recall how we had to set up our machines to make these often with only an oral description from the customer on the phone or a pencil sketch (often on a piece of scrap paper or a napkin). You also recall how badly some words conveyed what the customer wanted and all the consequently non-conforming parts that were made. Ugh! Good for the scrap guy, I guess!
Then what happened? Overnight or hand-delivered packs of plans! Faxed plans & sketches! Computers! Emailed drawings, CAD drawings! Instantaneous revisions? Even CNC-machines so the architect’s drawing goes directly to our machine with no human touch in between to create deviations from specs. Are we better off? Of course, but some days it just doesn’t seem so among the morass of emails, often brief but conveying critical changes in the shop drawings & specs! As the Luddites of the 18th century were wont to exclaim, “we are now at the end of all possible modernization”. Right? Wrong!
BIM is about to again be that sea-change in our world. Sounds innocent enough! Right?
Let’s go back a few years as Metfab Metals adopted the following phrase to identify what we did each day:
“Metal Solutions for Building Envelopes”
“Solutions” was the note we wanted to hit. As we have regularly upgraded our technology (both in the shop and throughout our executive offices), always seeking top-quality hardware and software, BIM is the next natural step. BIM is the current du jour technology that will soon be upon all of us, just as LEED, WBE,CCR, SBA and other modern modifications of traditional metal fabrication processing/planning/costing/etc have had to be accommodated in-house. [See our Newsletter archives for the historical changes we have made over time. See all of this at www.metfabmetals.com. But what is BIM and IPD and how are they “coming” as essential steps/integral parts of construction design, planning and execution?
We must thank and credit here true experts from the Northwest, CADD.Connection, LLC of Portland, Oregon, for the following lucid explanation of this “life of the building” mapping (check the graphic representation of this just below):
What is BIM? We hear it talked about. We see the marketing. We hear there are real savings to be had and money to be made on this BIM thing.
But what does it mean? Especially, how doesit affect our businesses?
To be clear;
BIM and PLM
are
PROCESSES
not
SOFTWARE.
Both acronyms are used to describe a collaborative approach to design/construction/maintenance: meaning LIFE-CYCLES. PARAMETRIC MODELING SOFTWARE and CENTRALIZED DATA are simply utilized to foster collaboration throughout these life-cycles….of buildings or products.
BIM stands for Building Information Modeling and is usually associated with architectural projects. PLM stands for
Product Life Cycle Management and is associated with Industrial/Manufacturing processes.
Whatever the label,
one thing is definitely in common.
COLLABORATION. Early and often.
Traditional processes created "silos of information" which exist throughout the project delivery chain. Design team members and construction team members are disconnected. Facilities` is often not even included in the discussions. BIM seeks to reconnect the information and the people,,,,,,The current state of BIM implementation has been generally described as spotty. Reasons for the seemingly slow market acceptance are varied. Issues involving software, hardware, training, strains on network infrastructure and limited document management abilities are often cited as major obstacles and has relegated BIM implementations to large projects or niche markets. …………
BIM processes can be utilized on any size project. (emphasis added to original)
For the most part, Construction teams are most familiar with the BIM subset called VDC. Through VDC, GC`s are realizing tremendous efficiencies and reducing costly field RFI's by implementing just a small part of the total BIM process during pre-construction phase. This process is becoming the industry standard. This process has been labeled VDC (Virtual Design Construction).
With increasing frequency, both the design teams and construction teams are finding places to utilize the tools of BIM to experience real ROI's. GC's and Stakeholders are looking to start this process earlier. Facilities and Maintenance are starting to realize that what happens upstream affects them. ………………………….Who should be interested in implementing BIM?
OWNERS
ARCHITECTS
ENGINEERS
GENERAL CONTRACTORS
SUBCONTRACTORS (such as all of us here at Metfab Metals)
FACILITY MANAGERS
Everyone involved in the management of a building's life-cycle benefits from having centralized building data. From concept design through decommissioning BIM processes provide fast and efficient access to information. With reliable information comes good decision making.
We hope that this brief intro to this new technology adds to your store of industry knowledge. We trust you are preparing to meet this new challenge as you work in 21st century construction. We are ready to work in this evolving process and contribute to the BIM plan for the next large job. We too often see “silos of information” work against a smooth job rather than shared information work in its favor.
Let me give you a simple example of this in our real world. Daily we carefully scrutinize plans received from a new job’s design professionals for practical difficulties/conflicts. More often than one might imagine there is a hole that doesn’t line up, a surface not listed for painting, stainless butting up to “black” steel, a steel size spec’d that doesn’t exist from the mills and other such invisible glitches. We like EARLY pre-construction job meetings to address---and resolve---such looming “disasters in the making”. We didn’t know that we were unwittingly anticipating BIM, but we like shared information in lieu of “silos of information”, not cost overruns and irate project managers due to change orders called in from the field. Don’t you? Remember the key word is COLLABORATION----before, during and after a project!
In technology, as in fabrication Metfab Metals always has striven to be at the literal cutting edge so that we can comply with that famous adage from Warren Buffett that “PRICE IS WHAT YOU PAY, BUT VALUE IS WHAT YOU GET.” Here at Metfab Metals you always get FULL value---and full service (with NO “silos of information”) and full collaboration for the price charged. Call us for the value you need on your next fabricated steel order.
And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE/CCR/SBA
set-asides & needs too!
Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs - small or large - --and even problems!
We Do Business the "Old-Fashioned Way" here at Metfab Metals, LLC
While our Founding Father, Ben Franklin, is credited with inventing bi-focals, perhaps first discovering electricity and convincing the French King Louis to both finance the American Revolution and support it militarily, he once simply wrote:
Diligence is the mother of Good Luck!
We live in the 21st Century, but that advice given to us during the 18th Century----about 250 years ago----still applies here at Metfab Metals, LLC.
Below is some of our “diligence” leading to “good luck” in the form of a 20th Century “invention” (a 75 year old steel delivery truck) that will soon again serve Metfab Metals, LLC for small local deliveries----and for the fun of it too!
Several years ago, a local family-owned steel company went out of business when the patriarch of the family died. We had watched its dusty old truck sitting in their inactive shop and offered to buy it. The truck you see above had been used for decades in that business, literally since the 1930’s. It was hauling steel when FDR was President and while the Great Depression was upon us as well as the tyranny of Adolf Hitler. Now it’s back more than SEVENTY years after its first delivery.
As new national economic woes plague us daily, many argue that we must go back to old and basic business principles in effect when this truck first made deliveries. Since the 1940’s, this Murray family has been involved in one type of metal business or another---- now for over SIXTY years. The maternal grandfather of our COO, Jim Murray, was Raffaele “Pop” DeSimone, an Italian immigrant who brought with him the skills of a tool & die maker. Jim can still recount the simple wisdom and skill of his “Pop” as Jim watched and learned his trade. What Pop gave to his first shop was the energy and commitment to make whatever a customer asked of him. What he left as a legacy was the pride of always doing a first-class job. Good work; good products; good service; good results. Diligence has indeed proven to be the source of business “good luck”.
In keeping with this legacy, we are winding up the full restoration of this trusty classic delivery truck and will actually use it to make local small deliveries. Let us know if you want us to come to your jobsite with this old workhorse----now running as well as it did when FDR lived at the White House! Take a look! Let us know and you can take a ride! [Watch this venue for future pictures of this classic.]
[ [Soon to have shiny new paint, signage and fully “restored” to vintage]
As to biz, we just signed three new contracts for jobs in New York, New Jersey and Virginia, one involving light-gauge fabrication, one for curtainwall support steel and one calling for very specialized AESS* work
We want YOU ---- our customers, past, present and future----to know that these jobs represent yet another set of products/services we can supply to all of you ------- and are already supplying to some of you. Once we precisely “set up” our machinery, this is largely “cookie-cutter’ work for us. We want to do this for you too ---- and deliver on time, every time----as always!Maybe that delivery will be via an American-made 1937 GMC truck too! Of course, we also can fulfill these same types of needs when CUSTOM-fabricated parts are called for by your customer.
We want to effectively tell YOU----in “our world” of metals---that we can fabricate ANY metal part that a 21st century architect can design or a 21st century industry will require.
*AESS, or Architecturally Exposed Structural Steel, is finely-finished steel members (prepped, welded, filled, blasted, polished, and/or uniquely painted/finished) to be permanently open to the view and touch of all after the job is done. AESS work is never covered by sheetrock or otherwise hidden from public view. Our COO, Jim Murray, has been an integral part of early AESS projects, such BWI International Airport (erected over a decade ago) serving the Washington, DC/Baltimore area. There you can see the structural steel ceiling space frame with its threads, pipes and connections in plain view -------- and still shining like its original installed condition! Since then, Jim has overseen AESS jobs as varied as the American Jewish Heritage Museum a few years back in Philadelphia and the unique roof ladder coverage at 51 Louisiana in Washington, DC or the Borgata Casino overhang in Atlantic City, NJ. WTC4 and VCU (two current jobs in our shop) will be even grander and more striking examples of this evolving art.
Project Updates:
250 W 55th, NYC, NY -------- This long-delayed Boston Properties commercial building has again been brought online and is now full-steam ahead. Here we will supply our customer with light-gauge fabrication work as stainless steel exterior fin cladding. Watch in future issues for developments of this grand new addition to the NYC skyline. VCU School of Medicine, Richmond, VA ------- This new campus landmark now requires us to fabricate vertical mullions in AESS* steel. Upcoming Newsletters will feature these from start to finish. Keep an eye out for these beauties!
Novartis Headquarters Expansion, Florham Park, NJ------ This job is well underway with Metfab Metals, LLC supplying curtainwall support steel for a LONG (hundreds of feet) & unique glass block wall and AESS* work in the form of podium steel, as well miscellaneous related parts, and whatever else the customer periodically needs in the field.
And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE/CCR/SBA
set-asides & needs too! Call me NOW!
Let me help with all your fabrication needs----and problems!
No one ---- Not one of us ---- who is now over 21 will likely ever forget where he was on that now-infamous Tuesday morning, 9/11/01! More exactly most of us here in the New York metropolitan area can tell you exactly where we were between 9 & 11am when the facts were driven home, all too painfully, that our nation was under attack and that our lives were about to dramatically change forever. Now, having lived through a decade of that change, we all have proof of how that change has worked itself out for all of us.
We here at Metfab Metals have joined various recollections, memorial events and fundraisers in the last decade to honor all the fallen heroes, support all the recovery efforts and rebuild our nation’s security and confidence that this will NEVER happen again. We have also “joined hands” to help rebuild the site itself --- Ground Zero, as it has come to be called---where those two iconic towers once stood---and where so many of our citizens were so cruelly executed.
*
(photo courtesy of www.WTC.com)
Almost too easily, writers have invoked the ancient metaphor of the Phoenix Rising (after which that eponymous city in Arizona was named) to convey the idea that, like that bird, the buildings will literally rise out of their own ashes to be regal and noble again. We are seeing daily what’s going on at the site and have to agree that, from these ashes, steadily are the new structures rising, finishing and opening once again to public view. We congratulate all the “First Responders”, officials, contractors, workers and others ultimately responsible for these Herculean tasks, carried out in tight on-site quarters, all weather conditions and while tourists and locals alike peer at the progress. This month, these “ashes” were in part re-opened to the public with features such as a park, fountains, a museum and more. On the second Sunday of this September, on the 9/11/11 tenth anniversary of that infamous attack, our nation will rightly commemorate all those killed that day----and the efforts of so many to recover from it.
We at Metfab Metals are again proud to say we are a small part of these efforts. These are just some of the aspects we are working on:
Onsite Memorial Pools ------- Anchors for Granite Sidewalls
At the same time now, and in increasing increments to match the pace of construction, our customers there are asking us daily for emergency parts and unexpectedly needed “odds & ends”. While we can’t match the way the “First Responders” answered on 9/11, we are working every day to help get these new monuments done in a first-class way to commemorate all the heroism shown that day. The rebuilt Ground Zero will in that way again be an icon of America at its best.
We at Metfab Metals once again hail all these efforts over the last 10 years and the undaunted spirit of America that is daily making this new icon a reality. We might well note the story of New York firefighter Matt Komorowski as a kind of template for the evolution that this site symbolizes. Matt was one of the First Responders on 9/11 and was trapped in the towers and survived largely because a well–built staircase survived the collapse and shielded him and 15 others from certain death. Needless to say, he was seriously injured and considered retiring from the Department. After considering it, he simply said, “…yes, I had thoughts of leaving (the Fire Department) , but I’m so happy I got back on the horse.” Matt, so are we and we are glad that the USA has also gotten “back on the horse” with a new World Trade Center that will be a symbol of the renewed spirit of America. Look at the partially done site just a few months ago:
(photo courtesy of www.WTC.com)
Updates:
WTC---Ground Zero---- We are about to start the fabrication aspect of our WTC4 contract. Our customer has released this PO now so that we can comply with the tight completion and delivery schedule this unique site requires. We are going to deliver the almost five-hundred (yup, 500!!!) AESS columns---some over fifty (50) linear feet of heavy gauge steel---with memorial medallions commemorating each of the First Responders that gave their lives on 9/11 for the rest of us. We’re doing this at our cost, so that we here at Metfab Metals can in this way add our own small “THANK YOU” to those fearless guys and gals-----true heroes all!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs - small or large ----- and problems!
Continue in 2011, working along side us, here at Metfab Metals!
"We work on YOUR time --- and deliver on time, every time."
August, 2011 Newsletter
Our New Plasma Cutter here at
Metfab Metals
Do you have a job requiring low-tolerance precision-cut parts? Maybe material edging or that just-right finish that saw-cut just can’t create? Or one where saw-cut parts can’t produce the strength of weld that your contract specification requires?
Well--- Metfab Metals can now provide all of that, and more, with our CNC new Plasma Cutter Department that we have integrated into our shops!
We here at Metfab Metals are proud to add this state-of-the-art technology and its capacities to the services we supply to you. This BUG-O model # BUS-6210 (manufactured right here in the USA in Canonsburg, PA) can cut everything up to 1.25” steel and stainless steel and meet---or even exceed----the most demanding specs and finishes. This allows us to deliver parts without rough saw-cut edges and welds stronger and more perfect than ever, no matter how intricate or fine your architect has designed the part. You get exactly what is spec’d and exactly what you want in the finishes.
But what is a plasma cutter? And why does it make our parts superior? First, you might want to know a little about the physics and technology behind it. To do so, we borrow (but credit to the source and author) a brief, but informative instructional on this:
[During World War II, the US out-produced the Axis powers in armaments by several multiples, a fact which heavily contributed to our victory. One of our innovations was the use of plasma technology which led not only to faster production, but superior metal strength and endurance in battle.]
………………One area of innovation rose out of the need to cut and join aircraft parts more efficiently. Many factories working on military aircraft adopted a new method of welding that involved the use of an inert gas fed through an electric arc. The breakthrough discovery was that charging the gas with an electric current formed a barrier around the weld, which protected it from oxidation. This new method made for much cleaner lines at the joints and much sturdier construction.
In the early 1960s, engineers made a new discovery. They figured out that they could boost temperatures by speeding up the flow of gas and shrinking the release hole. The new system could reach higher temperatures than any other commercial welder. In fact, at these high temperatures, the tool no longer acted as a welder. Instead, it worked like a saw, cutting through tough metals like a hot knife through butter. (emphasis not in original added here)
This introduction of the plasma arc revolutionized the speed, accuracy and types of cuts manufacturers could make in all types of metals………. A plasma cutter can pass through metals with little or no resistance thanks to the unique properties of plasma. So what is plasma?
There are four states of matter in the world. Most things we deal with in our daily lives are in the form of solids, liquids, or gases. ……………….[Text omitted in the interest of brevity.]
If you boost a gas to extremely high temperatures, you get plasma. The energy begins to break apart the gas molecules, and the atoms begin to split. Normal atoms are made up of protons and neutrons in the nucleus (see How Atoms Work), surrounded by a cloud of electrons. In plasma, the electrons separate from the nucleus. Once the energy of heat releases the electrons from the atom, the electrons begin to move around quickly. The electrons are negatively charged, and they leave behind their positively charged nuclei. These positively charged nuclei are known as ions…………………………………….When the fast-moving electrons collide with other electrons and ions, they release vast amounts of energy. This energy is what gives plasma its unique status and unbelievable cutting power.
Plasma cutters work by sending a pressurized gas, such as nitrogen, argon, or oxygen, through a small channel. In the center of this channel, you'll find a negatively charged electrode. When you apply power to the negative electrode, and you touch the tip of the nozzle to the metal, the connection creates a circuit. A powerful spark is generated between the electrode and the metal. As the inert gas passes through the channel, the spark heats the gas until it reaches the fourth state of matter. This reaction creates a stream of directed plasma, approximately 30,000 F (16,649 C) and moving at 20,000 feet per second (6,096 m/sec),that reduces metal to molten slag.
The plasma itself conducts electrical current. The cycle of creating the arc is continuous as long as power is supplied to the electrode and the plasma stays in contact with the metal that is being cut. In order to ensure this contact, protect the cut from oxidation and regulate the unpredictable nature of plasma, the cutter nozzle has a second set of channels. These channels release a constant flow of shielding gas around the cutting area. The pressure of this gas flow effectively controls the radius of the plasma beam.
Click the On/Off switch to watch a plasma cutter in action
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… In CNC (computer numerically controlled) cutting, you arrange your shapes on the computer screen and cut them automatically, without having to touch the material.
The plasma cutter is one of the most interesting and powerful tools developed in the 20th century. Using basic principles of physics to harness the fourth state of matter, the plasma cutter performs with nearly magical results. One can only imagine, as our understanding of plasma grows, how many more tools and applications will utilize this.
[We thank, for this excerpt and information, Robert Valdes, “How Stuff Works” and his fine article “How Plasma Cutters Work” which you can find in full at http://home.howstuffworks.com/plasma-cutter7.htm]
Our new Plasma Cutter Department now allows us to make sharp and precise cuts and the cutter itself has fast travel speeds so a job can be done quickly and efficiently, yet totally per the spec provided. Why?
Recall also that this new cutter is CNC. Your contract spec (the drawing itself) is sent to us by computer and imported directly, as received, into the cutter’s onboard computer. Simply, there is no double entry and thus no chance for any deviance between the spec you give us and the spec that guides the cuts. It can cut all manner of steel and other non-ferrous material with ease and complete stability. This is another step forward for Metfab Metals as we continue to update all our shop equipment and capacities. Watch here for other new equipment we are bringing online in coming months to further increase our capacities, production speed and expedited output.
We’re telling YOU----all of you in “our world” of innovative metal fabrication---that we can more accurately than ever fabricate ANY metal part that a 21st century architect/engineer can design or require. And deliver these parts on time……every time.
Call us with your REAL---even challenging--- jobsite needs And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE, CCR/SBA set-asides too!
Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs -
small or large
----- and problems!
Metfab Metals: Building Envelopes-------and So
Much More
A number of years ago, Metfab Metals adopted the
following phrase to identify what we did each day:
“Metal Solutions for Building Envelopes”
As we consistently supplied high-quality metals fabricated to any design of a building envelope component, this was the right way to describe our core business. The problem is that it doesn’t describe ALL we do---or even can do. We do so much more than work inside that “envelope”. E.g., we make solar panel frames and supports that often sit on top of the building. And AESS* columns and beams, such as the ones we now have in process for WTC4 face at Ground Zero in New York City or the façade of an academic building at VCU in Virginia and the whole spectrum of complex and specialty metal parts.
In short, we make anything that any metal shop can fabricate. We make the steel behind the stone; the steel to set the lobby glazing; the steel to hold the fenestration; the steel to adorn the façade; the stainless to go onto pre-cast panels; the steel to position the solar energy panels, and much more.
And since 2009, we have reported here one of our proudest efforts---being part of the team rebuilding Ground Zero, contributing anchors for the granite panels in the memorials pools (now already tested and ready for display to all visitors), as well as a whole array of steel for the towers that are now rising on this hallowed patch of land. When the entire World Trade Center site is once more pristine, we will again report all the parts, anchors, columns, AESS, and other fabricated elements we contributed.
All of this reminds us that, at bottom, we are just an old-fashioned “machine shop”, turning out whatever is ordered with whatever modern machines we add to get this done----right, as spec’d and on time! Yes, many of our machines now respond to computer commands and are CNC, but we still just drill, punch, bend, cut, shape and finish the metals you ask in the design you give us.
Every month we at Metfab Metals finish jobs and look back at the myriad items we’ve made and delivered, some per the original plans and specs, others per the ongoing needs of the job. We always offer to work with our customers from the start or design phase, to anticipate issues before fabrication, to suggest better ways to order, extrude, cut, drill, paint, finish, even deliver and always to save time and money. Call us, indeed use us, and come in for a job meeting to go over your job’s real metal needs before the job starts. Cost overruns, time-consuming change orders, aggravating plan revisions, and many other costly items can be avoided this simple way.
And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE, CCR/SBA
and other set-asides too!
Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs -
small or large
----- and problems!
* For the novice, AESS, or Architecturally Exposed Structural Steel, is finely-finished steel members (prepped, welded, filled, blasted, polished, and/or uniquely painted/finished) to be permanently open to the view and touch of all after the job is done. AESS work is never covered by sheetrock or otherwise hidden from public view. Our COO, Jim Murray, has been an integral part of early AESS projects, such BWI International Airport (erected over a decade ago)serving the Washington, DC/Baltimore area. There you can see the structural steel space frame with its threads, pipes and connections in plain view-------- and still shining like its original installed condition! Since then, Jim has overseen AESS jobs as varied as the American Jewish Heritage Museum a few years back in Philadelphia and the unique roof ladder coverage at 51 Louisiana in Washington, DC or the Borgata Casino overhang in Atlantic City, NJ. WTC4 and VCU will be even grander and more striking examples of this evolving art.
[Borgata Casino, Atlantic City, NJ ]
June, 2011 Newsletter
Standard and Unique Products
from Metfab Metals
Do you have a unique job coming up? Maybe you have
a façade with a creative metal, glass or stone
configuration or specification?
We here at Metfab Metals do! Indeed three of our customers have asked us to build mobile chambers or VMU’s (Visual Mock-Ups) so their architects can effectively see the proposed building “live” before final specs are settled for glass, its tinting, moldings, metal surrounds, even caulk and its complementary colors---and many other variants. The above picture is just part of a glass & steel VMU we built for a current project. Such projects will cover a broad spectrum of buildings and edifices, from a casino to a University hall to a large modern commercial building. Later we’ll supply the common curtainwall anchors on these jobs, as well as other miscellaneous steel parts. VMU’s; curtainwall; anchors; fabricated metal parts-----we make ‘em all.
Call us if you are at the planning stage of a new job and we can help with all the experience we now have with this design stage. Call us too for your “bread & butter” steel parts too. Every day we methodically turn out standard parts for standard jobs. Not really innovative, but the kind you and I have supplied for decades now to “keep the lights on”. In short, we can help you with both “cutting edge” fabrication, as well as the very common stud or tube---bent, drilled, punched, welded, finished or otherwise fabricated as spec’d.
We want YOU----our customers, past, present and future----to know ALL the products/services we can supply-------and are already supplying to some of you. Another customer recently ordered an array of brackets, supports, roof anchors, and miscellaneous steel parts to install their energy solar panels. This is “cookie-cutter” work for us. We can do this for you too ---- and deliver on time, every time----as always!
Of course, we also can supply you when CUSTOM-fabricated parts are called for. Architects are already designing supeructures to accommodate these solar panels as they “blend-in “to the overall aesthetics of the building. For example, AESS [Architecturally Exposed Structural Steel] work jumps to mind. Metfab Metals has many years of experience in this field also. See our past newsletters on this. Metfab Metals ‘ many years of experience with AESS work will help to make these panels seamlessly morph into the 21st Century exteriors we see every day now.
We want to effectively tell YOU----all of you in “our world” of innovative metal fabrication---that we can fabricateANY metal part that a 21st century architect/engineer can design or require.
Call us with your REAL---even challenging--- jobsite needs And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE, CCR/SBAset-asides too!
Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs ----- and problems!
In 2011, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly count onMetfab Metals for full value for the price you pay. This is still our pledge and our commitment to all our customers again in 2011.
May, 2011 Newsletter
SOLAR Hardware from Metfab Metals
Do you make “alternate energy” panels, support structures, windmills, towers, and the rest of the laundry list of relatively new products that these emerging industries now require?
To absorb the sun’s very useful----and very inexpensive---energy? To catch the wind? To drive a turbine? To harness water or hydro power? To explore for geothermal energy? Or the other creative ways our scientists are opening up to us every day?
Many of our long-standing customers are now also in these fields, now as complementary to the other construction industries they support. But very soon these will be primary businesses for many of us.
The diverse “alternate energy” ventures are now necessarily becoming engines of American industry. And we at Metfab Metals intend to be full partners in these ventures, exactly as we are in the mundane world of traditional metal parts fabrication.
We want YOU----our customers, past, present and future----to know that this is yet another product/service we can supply-------and are already supplying to some of you. Beyond what we’ve already done, one of our customers recently sent us drawings fort an array of brackets, supports, roof anchors, and miscellaneous steel parts to install the many solar systems they are selling. This is “cookie-cutter’ work for us. We can do this for you too----and deliver on time, every time----as always! Of course, we also can fulfill this need when CUSTOM-fabricated parts are called for.
What I just alluded to is the NEXT stage of “alternate energy” design. Architects are designing supeructures to accommodate these energy structures that are drawn to “blend-in “ to the overall esthetics of the building. For example, AESS work jumps to mind. Metfab Metals has many years of experience in this field also. See our newsletter on this subject published last November, 2010 and December, 2009.
We want to effectively tell YOU----in “our world” of metals consumers---that we can fabricate ANY metal part that a 21st century architect/engineer can design or require.
Call us with your REAL---even challenging--- jobsite needs And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE needs too! Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs ----- and problems!
In 2011, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly count on Metfab Metals for full value for the price you pay. This is still our pledge and our commitment to all our customers again in 2011.
2011 ---- Our 25th Anniversary Year
April, 2011 Newsletter
Changes from Metfab Metals
Over recent months, we followed our long-standing format here in telling you about many of our customers’ completed jobs----e.g., The National Museum of American Jewish Heritage in Philadelphia, the Memorial Pools at Ground Zero in NYC and 51 Louisiana in Washington, DC. In each of these prominent jobs, we had supplied many of our standard products such as anchors, curtainwall parts and miscellaneous metals, but we also supplied many truly custom-made parts, fully exposed to view as AESS steel (Architecturally Exposed Structural Steel). In Philadelphia, Metfab Metals was also called upon to fabricate metal pipes that now are integral parts of the glass outer skin that look out on the city’s signature Independence Mall. These visually and aesthetically-pleasing steel parts will be there in decades to come for all its visitors to see.
While all of these jobs are now beautiful additions to their cities and to our customers’ lists of successful jobs, what do they mean to Metfab Metals and to our reputation in this industry?
All of this made us realize now at Metfab Metals that we were always looking outward in talking to you, and not enough inward to really “see” what message we were sending. Our message to you was much too limited and too “old school”. So we looked around and realized our “message” to the world was also outdated and not a real reflection of the modern company we have become. We know our products, our methods and our message, but we need to tell this to you. Metfab Metals was already far more 21st Century than we were broadcasting to the world, especially to the world of our customers, present and future.
So what are we doing? A Makeover! Now, we know a day to day functioning metal fabricator is not the type place that is glamorously “made over” easily----------but then again neither is the raw steel, or other lighter metal, we “make over” all the time. [Take a look right here what we did at 51 Louisiana, for example!]
We want to effectively tell “our world” of metals consumers that we can fabricate ANY metal part that a 21st century architect/engineer can design or require. How are we doing this? As we know how all of you up-to-date contractors search out your needs constantly, we are adjusting and presenting our real story in a real format to all of you.
Look soon for our new website; our new Newsletters and; our new marketing. Go to industry trade shows (online and live)-------we’ll be there to answer ALL your questions. Call us; come in to see us; bring your problematic metals issues, even ones related to glass or curtainwall or stone placement. We are experts; we can help.
Call us with your REAL---even challenging--- jobsite needs And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE needs too! Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs ----- and problems!
In 2011, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly count on Metfab Metals for full value for the price you pay. This is still our pledge and our commitment to all our customers again in 2011.
March, 2011 Newsletter
See Our Full Line of Mullion Reinforcement Steel
In recent months, we wished you all well in this new year of 2011 and then noted under our Updates, that we had completed our part of National Museum of American Jewish Heritage, Philadelphia, PA-----Metfab Metals supplied anchors, curtainwall parts and miscellaneous metals on this building completed last year for visitors to see for the remaining decades of the 21st century and beyond.
We are getting inquiries regularly on our customers’ need for reinforced window mullions.
Of course, basically this is a solid steel bar or heavy gauge tube that is slid inside aluminum mullions, e.g., to reinforce and give added strength to the visually-pleasing window assembly. A window assembly includes adjacent first and second windows and a reinforcing mullion connecting the windows. The mullion is made up of the lineals and a metal reinforcing bar between the lineals. A securement means is also provided for connecting an end portion of the metal reinforcing bar to a support structure surrounding a window opening in a building. The mullion adds rigidity to the assembly, thereby increasing its design-engineered size and dimensions.
We are attaching here several illustrative pictures showing the various ways these are fabricated and used. Where exposed all-steel mullions are required, we are experts at a variety of finishes, giving steel bars the “look” of classic or colored aluminum in any finish or color your architect chooses. Look at our website for some of the successful “AESS” work we have done in this application----and many others. We are fully familiar with the tolerance issues involved in “mullion work” and regularly meet or exceed those standards. Finishes, whether AESS or otherwise, are media we have worked in for decades now.
Come in and meet with us `if you are considering such unique esthetic work; we can help you with a whole spectrum of the practical details and get your specs set in the right direction from the outset.
We at Metfab Metals would like to add that, if we can help at the EARLY and/or planning stages of a job, call us and send your plans for comments, especially on the metal parts we routinely turn out.
Project Updates:
World Trade Center, New York City, NY------ Tower #4 is now well under way. We are ramping up for the AESS steel columns and other parts that will be the signature for this rising mammoth. This monthly news will update this jobas 2011 unfolds---and into the future. Ground Zero is rising------and we are so very proud to do our part.
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs ----- and problems!
In 2011, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly count onMetfab Metals for full value for the price you pay. This is still our pledge and our commitment to all our customers again in 2011.
February, 2011 Newsletter
Fully-certified WBE Working with Metfab Metals
For years now, we have looked at plans that we can fulfill in our ordinary course of production and at a fair market price. We respond to the RFQ; research all our costs; solicit prices from our subs and submit a reasonable quote. Days, weeks drag on---only to later discover that our work had to be allocated to out-of-state, even out-of-region, unknown contractors because of a governmental contractual obligation our customer had to accept. What was that?------some call it a “set-aside”; others call it worse. But it is completely legitimate and has some laudatory bases. Just the same we lost the work.
Is this starting to sound familiar? It is too familiar to us here at Metfab Metals so we did something about it. We studied the rules (statutory, administrative and otherwise); researched the process; even attended seminars so we could qualify. But it’s a long grind to be fully legitimate----and we wouldn’t ever operate any other way. Then we looked at another solution---------find a certified contractor with the requisite capacity, knowledge and experience needed by our customer base. Then offer its services as an additional service we could supply--------so that we can do the non-“set aside” work and it can help our customer expertly fulfill the MBE/WBE/DBE set aside.
Well customers, we can now offer exactly this service. We have identified an independent contractor with over ten (10) years of experience in the “rough & tumble” NY metro area construction industry that is fully certified as a WBE by the states of New York and New Jersey, as well as the Port Authority of NY/NJ. We have researched her credentials, check her qualifications, seen work she’s done and even worked with her on “name” jobs. Of course, she doesn’t have our customer base or our valuable, confidential database. But she wants to work with us---and you. And she KNOWS our trade!
If you have a contract provision that mandates that you offer a set percentage of your subcontracted work to a WBE, call us. We can help you and document your legitimate fulfillment of this provision. It’s that simple. And she will perform with experience as her guide. Welcome to another aspect of the 21st century of business in America------------documented and fulfilled as your contract required..
Call us, indeed use us, come in for a job meeting to go over your job’s real needs before the job starts. Contract non-compliance, cost overruns, time-consuming change orders, aggravating plan revisions, and many other costly items can be avoided this simple way.
And NOW! Let us help you fill all your WBE needs too! Call me NOW!
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs ----- and problems!
In 2011, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly count onMetfab Metals
for full value for the price you pay. This is still our pledge and our commitment to
all our customers, again in 2011.
January, 2011 Newsletter
Happy New Year!!!!!
Last year in this space, we wished you all well in 2010 (and we now hope that actually happened for each and every one of you) and then noted under our Updates, that we had completed our part of a rather unique project, as follows:
National Museum of American Jewish Heritage, Philadelphia, PA----- Here again, Metfab Metals supplied anchors, curtainwall parts and miscellaneous metals on this building now
nearing completion for visitors to see for the remaining decades of the 21st century and beyond.
We have never before dedicated our monthly news reports to expounding on the mission of a completed job, but this one is a special one meriting special comment, as the national magazine Newsweek recently did (see November 22, 2010). The National Museum of American Jewish Heritage in Philadelphia is a venue that will surely become a magnet for tourists and local citizens alike to visit and re-visit. Most of us know that this was the city where our nation was born, gave us our Constitution and Benjamin Franklin started so many of our national treasures. What you may not know (I surely didn’t) was that Philadelphia is the home to one of the oldest Jewish congregations in America, Congregation Mikveh Israel, itself dating to pre-Revolutionary times in 1740. That very same Congregation decided in 1976 to advance a museum to illustrate “freedom” within sight of the Liberty Bell itself, from a perspective many of us may not have considered. The Museum president, Michael Rosenzweig, says that it is meant to ”inspire all Americans to a greater appreciation of the contributions American Jews have been able to make by living in freedom.” A noble mission indeed!
But the part that might strike many of you there in this unique place is its diversity. Many of us know of the stature of an Einstein or a Streisand or even a Brandeis, but given prominence also are the lessons in life from Sandy Koufax, Julius Rosenberg, Gertrude Berg and many others that not all of us yet remember------or perhaps ever knew.
Newsweek states that “[t]his is a museum for all the Jews who never got to the Supreme Court. They were salesmen and tailors and even farmers………….” We would add that this is a place for all peoples, perhaps especially students, to visit to see what one group of American citizens has contributed to the business, entertainment, law, music, culture and so much more. Go visit.
We at Metfab Metals would like to add that, while you’re there, enjoy the architecture and the metal parts we contributed to this new landmark.
Project Updates:
World Trade Center, New York City, NY------ Tower #4 is now “full steam ahead”. With the recent direction from our customer, we are ramping up for the AESS steel columns and other parts that will identify the entrance view to this rising skyscraper. Watch this monthly news here for updates as 2011 unfolds---and beyond. Ground Zero is rising like the proverbial Phoenix----and we are so very proud to do our part.
Call me. Let me help with all your fabrication needs ----- and problems!
Happy New Year!
Have a great 2011, working alongside us,
here at Metfab Metals!
“We work on YOUR time."
"You always get FULL value at Metfab"
In 2011, as in all the past decades of our company, you can truly
count onMetfab Metals for full value for the price you pay. This is
still our pledge and our commitment to all our customers again in 2011.
OWNERS 
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