Magic Steel's Decatur facility is now officially open for business. 

For everyone that assisted in the construction and startup of this new facility.

Fite Building Company
Braner
Machine Concepts
Samuel Strapping
DeShazo Cranes
Rademacher Industrial Systems
Atlas Industrial Contractors
David Deering
Gene Holm
And many others…   


Thank You

The building is closely approaching completion.  Fite is currently working on gutters and down spouts, wiring, floor coverings in the office, and final grading and top soil outside in preparation for paving the last week of August.

(Building - 8/6/09)

In preparation for the startup and commissioning portion of the slitter installation along with the startup of the packaging line, the first coils have arrived in the building.

(The first coils have arrived)

Atlas Industrial Contractors has finished the installation of the packaging line for Samuel Strapping.  All that is left for the packaging line is commissioning which will start once we have test coils to run down the line from the slitter.

(Packaging Line Installation near Completion)

Now that the Braner installation crew has been hard at work for 2 weeks, all of the components that were scattered all over the plant floor now look like a slitter.  With the components assembled and in place on the foundation and Braner is now in the process or connecting all of the electrical and hydraulic lines to the individual components.

(Braner Slitter during installation)

Fite has completed all of the exterior walls to the plant with the exception of the loading dock (which is almost complete).  Overhead doors are now installed.  Lighting in the north bay of the plant is operational and they are over half way done with the lighting for the south bay.  In the office, the drywall is ready for primer and paint.  Also, Decatur Utilities has turned on the water to the facility.

(Current Building Photo)

The last week few weeks have been busy.

The week of 6/22 was dedicated to getting all of the cranes installed and operational.  DeShazo started the week by conducting the startup and load testing of both of the 35-ton cranes and then proceeded to deliver, install, and load test the two 25-ton cranes.  Nucor generously loaned us the coils to load test the cranes.

(Cranes Installed)

With the cranes operational, equipment started to arrive.  The DC drives for the slitter arrived Friday 6/26 with the balance of the slitter arriving from Braner on 6 trucks on Monday 6/29.  The leveler arrived from Machine Concepts that Tuesday.  By Wednesday of the same week, the first of 3 trucks from Samuel Strapping arrived with sections of the packaging line.

(Slitter unloaded from Trucks)

Fite was not idle during this time either.  They completed the roof along with the north plant wall and sections of the west and south plant walls.  Thursday 7/2 starting at 2:00 am they poured the final 20,000+ sq. ft. section of the plant floor.  In the office the stud walls are up, the electrical rough in is complete, and windows are in.

July will be busy.  The installation crew from Braner arrives 7/6 to start work.  The remaining portions of the packaging line should arrive 7/8.  The installation crew from Samuel for the packaging line is scheduled to start work 7/13.  Fite will concentrate on the plant walls, and drywall in the office.

The final concrete pour for the slitter foundation occurred on Tuesday June 2.  Final clean up and painting is completed and the foundation now ready for the slitter.  Magic Steel would like to thank the Rademacher team for all of their hard work during the entire installation process.

(Slitter foundation finished)

Fite continues to make progress and the office is starting to take shape with the exterior walls up and the interior walls starting to take shape.

(Office as of 6/5/09)

We are pleased to announce that Magic steel has been awarded the 2008 Supplier Award from Knoll recognizing Outstanding Service and Cost Competative Support at the Muskegon, MI and Grand Rapids, MI Knoll facilities. 

Of 400 plus suppliers, 20 were singled out for this award with Magic Steel being the largest, in terms of dollars spent, and number one in on time delivery as well as quality management. 

Magic has been supplying sheet coil to Knoll since 1994 when the Grand Rapids facility was owned by Westinghouse and the Muskegon facility was owned by Shaw Walker.  Knoll acquired both companies and we have continued supply without interruption for those 15 years.

We have grown substantially since then, adding a new facility in Butler, Indiana with another due to open in Decatur, Alabama in the summer of 2009.  We look forward to continuing our relationship with Knoll for many years to come and are appreciative of the recognition they have bestowed upon us for 2008 performance.

Samuel Strapping has completed construction of the packaging line and is in the process of testing the line in their facility in Toronto.  Their plan is to complete as much as possible of the debugging of the fully automated line in their facility to minimize installation time in Decatur when the line ships.  Once debugging is completed, they will disassemble the line and prepare it for shipment to Decatur.

(Packaging Line being tested at Samuel Strapping)

Both of the 35 Ton overhead cranes are arriving from DeShazo this week.  The crane rails have been installed on the beams and the installation crew is in the process of hanging the conductor bar for the crane power.  Next week the 25 Ton overhead cranes should be arriving.

(First of the 35 Ton Cranes going into the building)

While the installation of the plant roof has been slowed down due to frequent rain storms, Fite continues to make progress with the office.  The floor is poured, the block wall between the office and plant is finished, the storm shelter roof is poured, and the steel framing for the office is about half complete.

(Framing and Storm Shelter for Office)

With warmer weather, building construction has been progressing at a brisk pace.  Since the last building update in mid March, Fite has finished hanging almost all of the steel framing, purlin, and cross bracing for the plant, poured the foundation walls for the loading dock, installed and leveled the crane beams in both bays, and poured another 20,000 sq foot of plant floor. 

(Floor Being Poured)

Rademacher has been making steady progress with the slitter foundation.  Their onsite crew has completed both the looping pit and the scrap baller pit while their shop has been fabricating all of the steel embedments that need to go into the concrete foundation to support the slitter.  Their onsite crew is now focusing on placing all of the steel embedments, conduit, and rebar in preparation for the final concrete pour in mid-May.

On the personnel side, we are very proud to announce hiring Gene Holm as our Plant Manager for the Decatur facility.  Gene brings the knowledge and experience of 23 years in the steel service center business to our organization.  One of Gene's goals is to instill a culture that focuses on safety, quality and productivity in the plant in the upcoming months as we interview, hire, and train.

While Fite has been busy with the building, Braner, Machine Concepts, and Advtech have been hard at work finishing up the equipment that goes inside the building.

The slitter knives and tooling have reached the lapping and polishing stage of manufacture at Advtech (Cowles).  During this manufacturing step, the final thickness of the knives and tooling is established to an accuracy of +/- 40 millionths of an inch.  The last and final step will then be to send the tooling out and have the size laser etched into each piece of tooling for easy identification. 

Machine Concepts has completed construction of the leveler and during our visit there this week demonstrated the operation of the leveler, the operation of the shape sensing rolls for the autoflat system along with calibration procedures for both the leveler and the shape sensing rolls.

(Machine Concepts Leveler Finished and Ready to Ship)

Braner has completed construction of the slitter and is just waiting for the slitter foundation and building to get to the point where they can begin construction.

(Braner Slitter finished and ready to ship)

For additional photos of the slitter and leveler, visit the "Decatur Photos" link to the left.

Since our last update, Fite has been hard at work.  The first 10,000 sq ft section of plant floor has been poured, and about 25% of the steel framing has been erected.  Their plan is to erect all of the steel for the south bay and then move over and hang all of the steel for the north bay.

(Building Erection 3/16/09)

Additionally, Rademacher has arrived on site and started construction of the looping pit for the slitter.  Currently Rademacher is about 2/3's of the way to final pit depth.  They plan to reach the finished depth by the end of the week at which time they will pour a floor in the bottom of the pit and can start forming up the finished walls for the inside of the pit.  Once the looping pit is completed, the next step will be to dig and install the pit for the scrap baller.

(Slitter Pit during construction)

The pre-engineered Nucor metal building has arrived on the site.  A batch of photos showing the building in the yet to be assembled form are in the Decatur Photos section of the web site.  In addition, Fite Building Company is preparing to pour the first of the floor sections.  They will start at the back of the building and work west with the floor sections.  Once the floor sections have cured, they will then go back and start hanging the steel.

 (The building - unassembled)

(First floor section almost ready for concrete)

Since the last update, all of the south footings have been poured along with most of the piers that the metal building will rest on.  Over the next week, most of the pre-engineered metal building will arrive from Nucor so future updates should show the building starting to take shape.  Everything has been finalized to run electrical power onto the site so next week Joe Wheeler EMC will start installing poles and running wire for power.

Site preparation for the building is mostly complete and all of the footings along the north and center sections of the building have been poured.  Work is starting on the south footings.  The pre-engineered Nucor metal building is set to arrive on site late January / early February.

Planning for the slitter for the new facility began over a year ago.  After detailed investigation, we settled on a state of the art 72" wide, 60,000 pound capacity Braner Slitter with a Machine Concepts Gen III Precision Shape Correction Leveler with a displacement type AutoFlat system.  Construction of the slitter and leveler started back in Feburary.  As you can see from the photos, the slitter is well on its way.

(Uncoiler Arbor during assembly)

(Slitter Head during assembly)

(Recoiler Arbor during assembly)

For over a month now, Fite Building Company has been hard at work preparing the site for construction, establishing the necessary elevations for the building pad, preparing the base for the road beds and parking areas, and installing the culverts for the driveways off from Maero Street.  Weather permitting, Fite should start pouring footings for the building the week of December 8.

(Preparing the site for the building footings)

(Establishing the base gravel for the truck drives)

Magic Steel Sales is pleased to announce Randall Cross as the first employee for the Decatur Alabama facility.  Randall has accepted the position of Vice President of Sales for the Decatur facility.  Randall brings 21 years of sales and account executive experience to the organization.