roll forming machine

When it comes to a choice of building materials for your facility, you already know steel is the most durable of them all. It’s light, requires a smaller foundation than structures built of other materials, and it is a highly versatile material. Now you need to decide what type of steel structure is best suited to your needs and budget. As you were driving along the highway recently, you probably saw any number of buildings. Among them were structures that were probably built using a rigid steel frame. A few may have been a more identifiable structure: the Quonset hut, a building with a semi-circular cross-section and often covered in corrugated steel panels. Let's take a look at the differences between a rigid frame and arch frame (Quonset hut). RIGID STEEL FRAME CONSTRUCTION Rigid frame gets its name from the rigid connection between the straight or tapered columns and the horizontal beam members. Due to the stiffness of the connection, this type of frame can hold verti...

Ice skating gains popularity after every Winter Olympics. In fact, it was the first televised Winter Olympics that brought figure skating into American homes. Figure skating isn’t the only sport that people want to watch or participate in. There is: Hockey (of course) Speed skating Curling Broom ball (hockey with brooms and balls) Open skate for public enjoyment You may be considering a skating rink that can provide practice space for future Olympic hopefuls to amateur and Little League hockey. An ice skating rink can be a facility for community use, or you may be constructing an ice arena for professional sports and entertainment. With steel, you can construct a rink suitable for skating lessons or a center where professional hockey shares space with Disney on Ice. However, ice skating rinks are quite different from your everyday office building. READY TO START BUILDING? DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF 10 STEPS TO PLANNING YOUR STEEL BUILDING » FACILITY USE How your rink is...

Using steel construction can significantly reduce the flammability of your structure. However, it doesn't make the building fireproof. Steel can be weakened and catastrophically fail if the temperature gets high enough. Steel loses nearly half of its weight-bearing capability once the temperature reaches 1100 degrees F (593 degrees C). Eventually, the structure will collapse, for one of the same reasons the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. It may not have been possible to save those buildings and the people inside them, but you can substantially reduce the probability that your steel facility will suffer the same fate by using proven fire-resistant materials and following safety recommendations from authoritative sources. READY TO START BUILDING? DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF 10 STEPS TO PLANNING YOUR STEEL BUILDING » AN INTRODUCTION TO FIRE RATING CONCEPTS Fire ratings are developed using concepts meant to illustrate different risk areas from which fire damage can occur. The Inte...

The standard industry disclaimer says this about oil canning: “Oil canning can be defined as a perceived waviness in the flat areas of [metal] panels. Oil canning is an inherent characteristic of light-gauge, cold-formed metal products with broad, flat areas. It is not grounds for panel rejection.” Wiktionary.org has a slightly different definition: “Moderate deformation or buckling of sheet material, particularly common with flat sheet metal surfaces. It is typically caused by uneven stresses at the fastening points.” Why do steel roofing panels do that? There are several causes, some of which you can influence as a roofing contractor, and others that originate at the mill or panel fabricator. While oil canning typically causes no structural integrity issue with the panel, many owners are not pleased with the appearance. Let’s look at some ways to prevent or reduce oil-canning as well as ways to repair or mitigate its appearance. ARE YOU READY FOR A NEW METAL ROOF? DOW...

The late George Carlin had a riff on Americans and their stuff. We buy a house and fill it up with stuff. When we can't fit in any more stuff, we buy a bigger house where we proceed to fill it up with even more stuff. Eventually, if we keep following this logic, everyone would be living in a warehouse, but that isn’t very desirable for most folks. However, we still have all this stuff and nowhere to put it, right? This is where the metal self-storage unit comes in and why the popularity of these facilities continues to grow apace. The best and most cost-effective facilities are built with steel. INTERESTED IN BUILDING A SELF-STORAGE FACILITY?   LEARN ABOUT THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE THROUGH STURDI-STORAGE » WHAT, EXACTLY, IS STEEL SELF-STORAGE? Simply put, steel self-storage is a building separated into multiple individual storage units, similar to garages and sheds. Most have no utilities (electricity, water, heat). If you own one of these facilities, people will pay you...

A metal roof is a durable roof, maintaining its strength and integrity for decades. But it can always use some help. Most steel comes with a coating, called a substrate, over which a colored or metallic finish can be placed. Galvanized steel is the most common coated steel in use. Paint and other finishes can be layered over the galvanized coating at the manufacturer, or they can be painted after the panels are formed. Paint is also used for maintenance and repair of the roof panel surface as it weathers. Let’s find out the benefits and objectives of painting steel panels, what the paint is made of, and the types of paint available for your metal roof. We’ll talk a little about performance expectations, application, and warranties while we’re at it. ARE YOU READY FOR A NEW METAL ROOF? DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE TO HELP YOU GET STARTED » WHY SHOULD YOUR METAL ROOF BE PAINTED? While steel panels already have a protective coating, paint provides another layer of protection. The r...

When speaking to potential customers regarding their steel building project, we always inquire as to their plan for insulation. Often, the response is "I'll insulate the building later if it turns out that it needs it." or "I have not really thought about steel building insulation.". Steel building insulation is an often over-looked and neglected area of planning a metal building project. Yes, steel building insulation can add to the cost of the project in the short-term. However, the savings that proper steel building insulation and professional installation can return over the life of a steel building is very substantial - not to mention the improved comfort level of the people inside the building. In addition to energy savings, steel building insulation can help to eliminate condensation issues - which are particularly challenging to deal with in places like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina. We often muse a...