Blog

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.

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 80^th 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!

With every New Year comes excitement about the anticipation of what is to come, but also a bit of caution as to what may lie ahead. That is why we took two New Year's pictures this year as a family! We must stick to what we know to keep our family and business strong, but we must also have the fortitude to take a leap when a project or challenge comes our way. The uncertain economic and social times we live in pose challenges each and every day, but I am confident in the companies we partner with, the people we work with, and the projects we invest in. Maintaining a strong steel industry, just like raising a strong family, is a collaborative effort. All hands on deck! Lets work together to get through these uncertain times and come out stronger on the other end!

And with every New Year comes reflection about the year prior. 2018 was one for the record books as we worked on many exciting curved steel projects. Albina was fortunate to team up with some great fabricators on a massive project in California this last year.  The project (to be named at a later date) consisted of 100’s of trucks, thousands of pieces and millions of pounds of bent steel.  This was the largest project Albina has processed to date and we look forward to working on more projects that have this level of complexity and excitement in 2019, the 80th Anniversary of our company!! 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!

Back in June, I posted a picture of some induction heating process, for the new American Airlines headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. In addition to the 16" square, we produced another set of 

The 1.7 million-square-foot complex, dubbed the “Trinity complex,” consists of constructing four seven-story buildings. It will cost at least $300 million to build and will house over 6,500 employees. There are 10 tower cranes on the project and there will be more than 1,000 construction workers on-site during the peak. It is scheduled to open during the second half of 2019.  These are the type of bends that ONLY Albina can do!

We collected toys this year for the U.S. Marine Corps,"Toys for Tots". The team collected $488 in toys, and Albina Co.contributed $432, totaling $920.00 worth of toys! Way to go team!

In honor of our 80th Anniversary, Albina has created a museum on site, called “The Smith-sonian”, which honors the family name and houses one of the first ever pieces of equipment that Albina owned and used to bend materials. John Smith, 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 to roll/bend various materials such as pipe, tube, and square and rectangular HSS (hollow structural steel). The machine would pull material around a bend die resulting in a smooth radius finished good. The “Model-T” was in operation at Albina until the 1990’s when it was replaced by more efficient bending equipment. “The Smith-sonian” is ready for visitors. Stop by to see us! Cheers to 80 Years! You can check out a virtual tour on YouTube.

This master bender machine offers the new and innovative iRoll camera system, allowing operators to view the part being bent compared to a radius template on the control screen. This is a new way to make quality and consistent parts. Another innovation with the master bender is the machine’s 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. This machine is a great fit for our shop, its size puts it right between our current Roundo R7 and R11 machines. Allowing us to reallocate work from two machines to three machines which should certainly help with our scheduling flexibility. The MCP30 will allow us to bend up to 8” x 8” angle, 9” square HSS, W16 the easy way / W12 the hard way and 14” Sch20 pipe / 12” Sch40 pipe. [caption id="attachment_1716" align="aligncenter" width="420"] Brian and Jaime Smith by the Davi Machine[/caption]

Albina provided 41,000# of bent steel to a Arizona fabricator for the St. Augustine Cathedral Square Conference Center and Offices project located in Tucson, AZ. Albina was responsible to bend 13 different materials including angle, square tubing and rectangular tubing. Sizes ranged from 2” x 1½” angle up to TS 16” x 4” rectangular tubing. This project shipped on multiple trucks, but to help reduce freight costs to our customer we were able to combine the different releases with other goods shipping to the area allowing our customer to pay for partial trucks vs. full trucks. The bent steel is part of a $12 million, 50,000 square foot four story complex (click here to see rendering). The first, third and fourths floors will house the cathedral offices, while a 500 seat conference and education center will reside on the second floor.

We spent Thanksgiving touring around the beautiful state of Arizona. We saw many of the beautiful sights in Sedona and even went to visit the Grand Canyon. One of the highlights of the trip was our stop at Sloan Park, home of the Chicago Cubs Spring Training. We were anxious to see the field, but equally as excited about getting some pictures of the 50,000 pounds of steel we bent for some custom gates that sit above the stands at the park. The gates hold the overhead field lights. We bent various materials for this project including: W6 X 15# A992. 80 pcs total. Bent the hard way to a 8’-9” radius. C6 X 8.2# A36. 42 pcs total bent flanges in to a 10 ft radius. WT8 X 18# A992. 4 pcs stem out and 6 pcs stem in bent to a 10 ft radius and to a 56 ft radius. TS 3" X 3" X .188" WALL A500 GR B. 30 pcs bent to a 4’-4” radius and 17 pcs bent to a 11’-6” radius. 4" X 3" X ¼" ANGLE A36. 20 pcs total. Some rolled leg in and others leg out. All pcs were bent to a 95 ft – 105 ft radius. 7" X 4" X 3/8" ANGLE A36. 7 pcs rolled leg in and 1 pc rolled let out. All pcs were bent to a 10 ft – 90 ft radius. MC6 X 18# A36. 4 pcs rolled the hard way to an 11 ft radius. TS 6" X 6" X .250" WALL A500 GR B. 3 pcs rolled to an 11 ft radius. 8" X 8" X ½" ANGLE A36. 3 pcs rolled let out to a 52 ft radius.