Zahner

Besides having to drive to and from Kansas city in the pouring rain, I had a great time on this trip. My step dad owns a metal fabricating business back in Chicago, IL., so it was neat to see a similar factory/plant and how they're tools and processes differed. Zahner makes products like metal building pieces, facades, structural parts, and more. Mainly these are for universities, major cities, stadiums, and amphitheaters. I liked how they only bought materials specifically for a project; they never have any extra materials lying around or have to waste pieces if they bought too much. Materials they use includes copper, stainless steel, zinc, ceramic, glass, silicone, brass, and more. Technologies they use includes robotic welds, CAD modeling inputed into machines, sheering, punching, water jet, CNC router, welding, and accurpress. For finishing they do things like embossing, sanding, and bead blasting, which I find to be the best looking finish they did. My favorite machine in the shop was that they had one that was for the bending of metal. The machine calculates the bending of the metal and over compensates for the angle depending on the size and material because when metal is bent, it will always fold back a little bit. And the calculation allows it so that when the metal folds back, it will be at the right degree.