Taking on the Tough Projects
Paul Deffenbaugh, Editorial Director,
Posted
08/31/2012
"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 difficulty 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
government projects such as embassies and other buildings.
Typically, the company fabricates, packages 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 finishing to its capabilities. After a quiet year, the
company expects the new services to boost its annual revenue to
approximately $6 million. The total number of employees 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 retrofit markets. With a paint
and finish line, though, it will add other fabricators to its list
of customers.
The work
The kind of project that is in the company's wheelhouse is
highly decorative in nature or has a high degree of difficulty.
(See sidebar on SCAD Museum project.) "It's something that requires
craftsmanship and expertise that you wouldn't be able to find 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 find people like this off the street," Downey says. "Most of the
time you have to hire qualified 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 fabricating 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 expansion 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
traffic 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 final piece of difficulty 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 fit 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.