Chief Industries open house

On Saturday Chief Industries had an open house at its Rensselaer plant located on East Maple Street. I went not knowing what to expect but there was a promise of tours and I love plant tours.

Upon entering we could not miss the bounce houses. It seemed that a lot of families of the people who work there had come to the open house. Chief Industries employs about 110 people in Rensselaer in two shifts. The headquarters for the company is in Grand Island, Nebraska.

We quickly found an employee who gave us a guided tour. We started with the line that produces metal roofing panels. The panels start as a roll of steel.

They are shaped by these rollers (I am sure there is a technical term for them).

Then end up with the shape shown below. The panels interlock and there is a some kind of gunk injected under one edge by the machine shown in the picture below that makes the joint waterproof. Wall panels are formed on a similar line.

There are overhead cranes everywhere. During the open house kids were allowed to guide a crane, trying to drop a bucket of water into a target square. I do not know if the ones who were really good were given employment applications. However, Chief was using the open house to attract potential employees.

Every week Chief uses hundreds of tons of steel. Their business is producing the parts—wall panels, roofing, and i-beams—needed to construct metal buildings. The designer sends them the plans and they manufacture the parts that the plans calls for. These rolls will become wall panels.

I was trying to get a picture of how long the building is but this picture does not really give an impression of just how long it is. It is 700 feet long, the length of more than two football fields.

The building has two sections. The east section produces i-beams and items that are thicker than the wall and ceiling panels. Some of the steel arrives in large sheets.

Those large sheets can be cut with a plasma cutter. See here for what a plasma cutter is.

The Rensselaer plant has two plasma cutters. One of them had a metal sheet on it with many parts already cut out but a few still on the cutter.  Plasma cutters are computer guided, so the details of the part are entered into the computer and a human does not try to guide the cutting. In the picture below you can see that the cutting goes through the sheet and cuts the metal supports. These supports must be replaced periodically. They work best if they have some rust on them so the melted metal does not stick to them.

Some of the steel is destined to become i-beams.

The first step in forming an i-beam is to position the three pieces of steel. They are lifted into place by electromagnets. Then one end is given a small weld, which you can see at the bottom in the picture below. Notice that the back end is disconnected.

These pieces then go through a welding machine that welds the pieces together.

Below are the controls to the welding machine. It takes about a month of training to operate this machine competently.

The last step in producing the beams is to paint them, The painting is done with high tech methods that I do not understand.

Here is the finished product. The holes were cut with a plasma cutter.

The open house offered visitors lunch and a free Halloween lawn decoration. These were cut with the plasma cutters.

At one time the Rensselaer Chief plant produced grain bins. That production line is now in Nebraska. The building parts that the Rensselaer plant produces are shipped throughout the eastern United States.