We’re pleased and proud to announce the opening of a new wing of our facility here in Albertville, Alabama. By adding another 30,000 square feet to our shop floor, most of which will be devoted to a state-of-the-art finishing operation, we can now boast almost 100,000 square feet under one roof!
This will allow Southern Metal Fabricators to bring all blasting and painting for its custom fabricated ducts, tanks, carts, and other metal products in house, greatly reducing finishing times for most projects.
The controlled paint booth at the heart of the new finishing operation is a 1,300-square-foot booth capable of accommodating large roller carts, which will be used to wheel products such as carbon steel storage tanks in and out of the booth. Multiple sprayers will hit inserted products from all directions at once, expediting painting times. Following paint application, the controlled environment inside the booth will rapidly dry products, reducing dry times from two days to two hours in some cases.
To keep pace with current and anticipated industry finishing regulations, Southern Metal Fabricators also installed steel grit blasting equipment — a superior technique to sand blasting that enables better-quality finishes and faster finishing times — as part of its finishing operation overhaul.
“With quality custom metal fabrication, you often spend almost as much on the finish as the base metal,” said Charles Bailey, General Manager at Southern Metal Fabricators. “We take this part of the custom fabrication process very seriously, which is why we decided to make this investment in a top-notch finishing operation — not only purchasing state-of-the-art equipment, but also expanding our facility by 40% in order to accommodate it. I am proud to say that we now have a blasting and paint shop that is up to the level of the rest of our operation.”
