By Paul Deffenbaugh, Editorial Director
“What I like to say is, ‘It has to be pretty ugly before we get a chance to look at it.’ The higher the complexity and the greater the degree of diffi culty is where we shine the most.” So says John Downey, owner of Downey Metal Products, based in Adairsville, Ga. Downey Metal Products fabricates metal
products for construction and installs them throughout the 48 contiguous states. It also ships components overseas, primarily to federal gov- ernment projects such as embassies and other buildings. Typically, the company fabricates, pack- ages and ships such components as monumental steel, aluminum panel systems, and metal and glass staircases. This work accounts for about 60 percent of its business.
Overview Downey started the company in 1997, but he grew up in the business. His father started a metal shop in Atlanta in 1964, and Downey spent his early life learning the trade and the business. It was in 1996, when his father retired, that Downey ventured out on his own, and now he owns a business that in a normal year does a little more than $2 million in business. Big changes are on the horizon, though. Recently, the company moved to a new facility
and has added painting and fi nishing to its capa- bilities. After a quiet year, the company expects the new services to boost its annual revenue to approximately $6 million. The total number of em- ployees will surge from 24 currently to a predicted 53 by the end of 2013. Downey Metal Products has always served
general contractors and building owners in both the new and retrofi t markets. With a paint and fi n- ish line, though, it will add other fabricators to its list of customers.
Downey Metal Products Vital Stats Founded: 1997 Location: Adairsville, Ga.
Markets Served: Installation in continental United States, ships product internationally 2011 Total Revenue: $2.2 million 2012 Projection: $1.5 million 2013 Projection: $6 million Number of employees: 24
Services offered: Fabrication and installation of metal building products, including painting and fi nishing.
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The work The kind of project that is in the company’s wheel- house is highly decorative in nature or has a high degree of diffi culty. (See sidebar on SCAD Muse- um project.) “It’s something that requires crafts- manship and expertise that you wouldn’t be able to fi nd with more fabricators,” says Downey. When asked what gives Downey Metal
Products the capability to take on such a project, Downey doesn’t hesitate. “The people,” he says. Many of them have been with the company for years. “It’s hard to fi nd people like this off the street,” Downey says. “Most of the time you have to hire qualifi ed fabricators and have them hone their skills to the product.”
The SCAD Museum One recent project Adairsville, Ga.-based Downey Metal Products took on was fabricat- ing and installing shutters to run along the curtain wall of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum in Savannah, Ga. “One of the problems was the size of the shutter,” says John Downey, owner. “They were 11 feet wide by 18 feet tall and not something easily fabricated on-site or stick built.” One solution was to break the shutters into quarters to facilitate handling, then stack them on-site to create the right size. In the end, Downey Metal Products
fabricated them out of 2- by 4-inch rectangular aluminum. Fabricators routed out the slots at a 15-degree angle to hold the slats, which were 1/4- by 2 1/2-inch rectangular bars. To the face of the slat bars, workers
fastened ipe wood, a premium Brazilian hardwood, by countersinking the aluminum bar and screwing into the back of the wood. Ipe is so dense that every screw hole needed a pilot hole. “We had to calculate the expan- sion of the ipe and the aluminum, so we left a 32nd of an inch space at the end of each board,” says Downey. Once fabricated, each shutter weighed
about 2,000 pounds. The installation was along a courtyard wall, which was also a high traffi c area during construction as other trades moved in and out, so the shutters needed to be lifted over the building by a 33- ton boom truck. The entire run of shutters was about 300
feet, and they were fastened to steel columns placed 11 feet on center. To account for the columns being out of plumb in either axis, Downey Metal Products fastened adjustable brackets to absorb the variances. The shutters attached to the brackets. The fi nal piece of diffi culty to solve was
managing the tight clearance between the back of the shutter and the curtainwall. To be able to fasten the shutters to the brackets, workers needed to be in that space, so the company designed custom scaffolding long enough to fi t between the steel columns and narrow enough to work in the space between the shutters and the glass wall. And, of course, the shutters are hinged across the top to provide access for window washers after the installation was completed.
September 2012
METAL CONSTRUCTION NEWS 31
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