Garbe Iron Works Knows How To Maximize Shop Floorspace

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Adding more machinery while gaining floor space is every fabricator's fantasy, and a perfect example of this lies within Garbe Iron Work's facility in Aurora, IL. Drilling, sawing and coping operations are efficiently executed all within their 740 sq ft machine shed.

The less we touch the steel, the more money we make. And right now, with the setup the way it is, we're touching it less than we ever have.

The defining moment, to me, in Garbe's history, was 1964 when my father took a one day job as an ironworker here at GIW, and then never left. That started a relationship with Jim Garbe that lasted the rest of their lives.

Over the past 20 years, GIW has progressed into a fabricator that uses the technology that's available to produce more and to meet customer demand. And most recently, with the new additions of the Liberator, the new saw and the PCD-1100, we're able to keep up with demand and produce good stuff, using latest technology.

Now with the new setup, everything being in the saw house, it stays outside. But when it comes in, it's ready to be sent to a fitter and it is just offloaded right onto their skids. That's the great thing about this new system, is that it takes up less space in our shop. I have more area. It creates a place for me to make more money because I got a bigger area to produce more steel.

The piece of equipment that I think is most important to our success is the new Advantage-2 drill line. The speed and accuracy, just to make life better for GIW.

But we also installed a refurbished Anglemaster and a refurbished plate machine from SSSL. The first one was installed and it was great. Plug and play, the remanufactured FPB-1800. One of the new benefits of that was the addition of the latest technology through Hypertherm. My guys were able to pick up with production right where they left off.

We have one gentleman that runs drills, saw and Liberator at the same time. He has had great luck propping ends of beams, putting copes on stuff.

My favorite project that GIW has ever done has to be the Rockford Airport. They were building two large maintenance hangars, they ended up being 22 trusses that were a 100 feet tall and 300 feet long. It had every 15-feet or so, it had moment plates, and those plates were full pen welded to tubes. And so we utilized Peddinghaus equipment like you wouldn't believe. And it was pretty neat. We had no problems, fabrication-wise, with anything in the field. The erector couldn't have been happier, and neither could the customer.

It's nice to see what you built. And the guys that don't see what we build, I don't think really appreciate what they do. I take pride in what I make. I want to make it right, so it goes up right.

It's always been a really big focal point for GIW to assure that steel is the number one building material in the country. And it is important to us that people recognize that steel is the best way to build buildings.