A Metal Rolling Firm Outgrows Chicago. In The Fabricator magazine of NOOMA.

A Metal Rolling Firm Outgrows Chicago
In The Fabricator magazine, January/February 2005
NOMMA member, Chicago Metal Rolled Products, has opened a new 30,000 square foot facility to curve structural steel, sheet, and plate in Kansas City, MO.According to its President, George Wendt, the centrally-located facility will allow the Chicago-based company to serve its customers in the central, southern, and western United States with even greater capacity, speed, and reduced freight costs.

Fabricator: Can you tell us a little about each of the facilities owned by Chicago Metal Rolled Products?

Wendt: The Kansas City facility has 10 rolling machines to complement the 50 rolling and bending machines in its 100,000 square foot plant in Chicago.In Missouri, our company can curve up to 40 inch wide flange beams and up to 20 inch diameter pipe; in Chicago, up to W44 inch beams on the world’s largest beam bender.Missouri can bend up to 1 inch x 10 foot wide plate; Chicago can bend up to 5/16 x 12 foot wide plate. At our third 20,000 square foot facility in Bryson City, NC, our company supplies tight-radius, draw bending of tube and pipe up to 6 inches.

Chicago Metal has maintained a 98 percent on-time delivery record for five years running while offering 3-day, 2-day, 1-day and same day service.Customers near the Kansas City plant have raved about its quick delivery and have many times enjoyed “rolling-while-you-wait service.” That is, when quick turn-around is critical, a fabricator brings his material to the shop and waits until the parts are curved and reloaded on his truck. Multiple machines, well defined processes, and a well trained team of 70 employees guarantee reliable quality and delivery.

Fabricator: What’s the history behind your family-owned-and-operated company?

Wendt: Founded in 1908, Chicago Metal was purchased in 1923 by George F. Hauf, my grandfather. With limited formal education, he built on his experience working in steel mills and for fabricators to become an entrepreneur. His company grew to employ more than 300 workers in a 200,000-square-foot plant which could fabricate virtually anything from light sheet metal to heavy plate. He also developed a line of standard angle flanges and straight-seam, lock-seam pipe in 10-foot lengths.

Fabricator: Who runs the company today?

Wendt: Today, I head up the company; my brother Joe heads up sales; and my son, Dan, heads up engineering. And our mom keeps us all in line. Building on the pioneering roll-curving technology developed by the company over the decades, in 1984 Chicago Metal Rolled Products was created as a separate company to specialize in forming rings and curved segments from tiny 1 by1 by 1/8 angle to massive W44 by 285# beams and everything in between. Angles, bars, beams, channels, pipe, tube, tees—-every structural shape can be curved by our company in virtually every orientation. My brother Joe likes to say, “If it can be bent, we can bend it.”

We can roll-curve sections to extremely tight radiuses with minimum distortion, for example, a W6 x 12# beam rolled the “hard way” (against the strong axis) to a 2 foot radius. We also regularly bend steel into ellipses; roll arcs with straight tangents at the end(s); does off-axis and multi-axis bending; create true, helical coils; curve compound bends, and manufacture plumb, circular stair stringers.Lastly, Chicago Metal Rolled Products curves aluminum extrusions to create arches and bows on curtain-wall and store-front systems.

My son, Dan, thrives on the engineering challenges provided by our customers. The problems are solved partly by developing accurate layouts, partly by extensive training of all involved, and partly by other in-house engineering and technology. For example, working with miscellaneous and ornamental iron shops and the skilled craftsmen in the shop at Chicago Metal, Dan has helped create stair stringers with a tight pitch out of 12 by 4 tubing for monumental, circular staircases. The shop also produced a galvanized, circular, stair system with the bolt holes for the treads prepunched for easy assembly on the job site.

Chicago Metal also regularly forms complex canopies with waves, compound bends and reverse curves for NOMMA member companies. Most often our complex bends reduce the number of weld splices otherwise required.

Fabricator: What’s the secret to the successful fabrication of these complex structures?

Wendt: The secret is that we welcome early involvement and teamwork with the fabricators, designers, and owners of any given project. Our company participated in the actual design of three, award-winning, architectural masterpieces in Chicago in the last year: the trellis for the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park by Frank O. Gehry; the elliptical train tube for the McCormick Student Center at IIT by Rem Koolhaus; and the sinuous beams that support the roof at the Ratner Athletic Center at the University of Chicago by Cesar Pelli. In each case, early involvement solved problems, reduced costs, and facilitated construction.

Fabricators, engineers, and architects often consult with Chicago Metal to check on the feasibility of particular designs. For example, five years before its completion, Chicago Metal consulted with the engineers at Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill about the trellis for the music pavilion at Millennium Park. A web of 12,14,16,18, and 20-inch diameter curved and intersecting pipe was to cover an area greater than four football fields and to hold speakers for a computerized sound system. Gehry’s design called for 570 tons of pipe curved in two planes with multiple radiuses. Chicago Metal suggested that each pipe be curved in one plane and that the radiuses change at the nodal junction of the pipes. The architect agreed and chose to tilt each arch a little to the side. The result is both esthetically pleasing and cost effective.

With the addition of our new Kansas City plant and technological improvements in our Chicago and North Carolina facilities, Chicago Metal Rolled Products seeks to provide its customers with improved speed, quality, service, and value. We welcome all inquiries from NOMMA readers.