Month: April 2012


Rolling beams and steel plate are processes most often used to curve metal.  With the right machines, machine operators, and methods, however, the processes can also be used to straighten steel sections. In our plant today we are straightening three Read more…


Recently, a miscellaneous steel fabricator came to me with a very challenging project for circular stairs. They were looking to make a curved monumental staircase using 20 x 8 x 5/8 rectangular tubes. The stair was elliptical, had a reverse Read more…


Roller/benders in the steel industry (those who specialize in curving steel) often work with miscellaneous and ornamental fabricators providing them with helical stair stringers to create circular stairs.  Most often these circular staircases are rather large, suitable for a ballroom Read more…


Steel section bending, whether it is curving angles, bars, beams, channels, tees, or other sections, most always requires extra material at the ends of the rolled material.  This extra material goes by several names: “trim,” “waste,” “pick-up,” “tangent,” “grip,” “run-off,” Read more…


Rolled angle rings are commonly used as angle flanges to connect cylinders or pipe.  Welded to the pipe or cylinder, the mating angle rings are commonly bolted together through holes put in the horizontal leg of a leg-out angle ring.  Read more…


A convergence of events including the increasing acceptance of beam bending by cold cambering, standardized design of steel bridges, and increased availability of domestically produced jumbo beams all contribute to making steel the solution for bridges. AASHTO (American Association of Read more…


When one considers ways to bend a large channel flanges-out to a minimum bending radius, doing a mandrel bend is one alternative.  A recent requirement was for more than 200 rolled channel, bump protectors to cover cement columns in an Read more…


A civil engineering student recently inquired about steel tube bending for an algae growing tree.  She first heard of Chicago Metal Rolled Products last fall when its president talked to her Materials of Construction class at the Illinois Institute of Read more…

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