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Putting the finish first

Aesthetic appeal plays central role at R & B Wagner

If you think about fabricating steps in order of process, you probably think about finishing last. Short of a final inspection and packaging, it is last. Furthermore, in many shops, finishing is an entry-level position, and although the process isn’t quite an afterthought, a nice appearance usually isn’t as critical as everything else that goes into a successful product—research, design, prototyping, testing, and so on. On the other hand, if you told Kane Behling you thought about finishing last, he might just tell you that you’re thinking it through backward. A dyed-in-the-wool metal finisher, Behling’s first manufacturing job was finishing, and although that job was just a roll of the dice, it was a great fit.

At the time Behling had a full-time job that could have led to a stable, respectable career. Still in his teen years, he had a management position in the grocery industry. However, he hadn’t picked a career path and kept his options open through a temporary placement agency. He took short-term jobs on occasion until he got a call about an opening for a metal finisher. He showed up equipped with little more than youthful enthusiasm, but it turned out that he had a good feel for the work. He took to finishing like a duck to water.

“I made rate my first day,” he said.

Before long he was doing all manner of finishing, on and off the clock, working on manufactured components by day and farming out his services by night. He worked on auto restorations, antiques, museum pieces, and on and on. He rarely turned down a request, which gave him a depth and breadth of experience few can rival. Eventually he was working 12-hour days, seven days a week.

When he was on the clock, his relentless pursuit of a superior finish occasionally got in the way. On a three-point scale consisting of Below Expectations, Meets Expectations, and Exceeds Expectations, Behling’s work was often a four, Better Than a Mirror, and his supervisor would have to explain concepts like backlog, profit margin, shipping schedule, and you’re spending way too much time on that. Behling caught on, but in the meantime, he was gratified to learn that the great care he took in his work was appreciated and he was developing a solid reputation.

“At that time, if you did an Internet search for a metal finishing expert, my name often came up in the top seven results,” he said.

Eventually he made his way to R & B Wagner, Milwaukee, a company that specializes in architectural work, mainly handrails and handrail components. Although Behling doesn’t do much finishing work these days, his position as manufacturing operations manager provides endless opportunities for him to keep up with the latest techniques and equipment, and he strives to keep Wagner at the leading edge of finishing technology.

Iron Then, Iron Now

Wagner’s story started in 1850, when Julius Wagner founded a blacksmith shop in Buffalo, N.Y. Twenty years later he packed up and moved to Milwaukee, where he started over, opening an iron shop specializing in metal products for architectural applications, such as railings, fences, shutters, and stairs. As time went on, Wagner’s grandson, Adolph A. Wagner, developed a product line of related components, mainly fittings and elbows. In more recent decades, under the direction of Adolph A. Wagner’s children, namesakes Robert Wagner and Barbara Wagner Karol, the company shifted direction and made some strategic acquisitions. It purchased companies in peripheral industries—Advance Stamping Co. Inc;, Superior Polishing; Johann Tube and Pipe Benders Inc;, and the J.G Braun Co., a nationally known manufacturer of architectural and ornamental railing components—all of which expanded the company’s knowledge base and capabilities.

While many companies use a single business model, Wagner has five:

  1. Designer: Wagner designs railings, railing systems, and related components.

    Figure 1
    Wagner’s patented PanelGrip glass railing locking system provides a dry-glaze option for structural setting of glass in an aluminum base channel.

  2. Manufacturer: In addition to railings and componentry, the company manufactures bicycle racks and many other tubular items; the Wagner catalog has approximately 8,000 items.
  3. Service center: Although shipping big orders to distributors is the most efficient way to distribute products to the marketplace, Wagner hasn’t been a stickler for minimum order size. It has been known to ship a single 90-degree elbow or a handrail bracket directly to an end user on occasion.
  4. Contract metal manufacturer: The company’s array of machines and capabilities puts it in an ideal spot to do manufacturing work for other companies. More than a dozen tube benders (rotary draw, roll, ram, and induction), a mix of 13 cold and band saws, five end formers, three coping machines, a tube laser, a sheet laser, 30 stamping presses (10 ton to 400 ton), 13 welding stations, welding turntables, 12 polishing lathes, an assortment of hand held grinders and polishers, quite a bit of ancillary equipment, and the know-how to develop and maintain tooling make this a one-stop shop for many OEMs. Through its contract work, it makes components that go into an endless variety of end products for consumer, commercial, and industrial uses.
  5. Finisher: The company provides finishing services to other manufacturers, and it takes on one-off items from individuals who don’t have the tools or knack to do metal polishing themselves. An old tea kettle, a small storage tank, an antique that needs some tender loving care—any and all are welcome.

Although a basic handrail is a simple item, Wagner’s many handrail styles provide plenty of opportunity for designers to use their imaginations, and this might be the company’s strongest role. Handrails and components come in an endless variety of types and styles, but it doesn’t end there. Guard-and-railing systems, which are required if the handrail runs across a balcony or along an open stairway, likewise are made from materials that inspire designer creativity: tube, cable, mesh, and glass. The company also makes quite a few LED options for illuminated handrails.

While the company has a handful of unique designs and patented products, one stands out as a far-reaching innovation. The concept, PanelGrip®, secures glass panels for the upscale restaurants, hotels, shopping malls, and other businesses that want unobstructed views. Wagner saw an opportunity in simplifying the installation method, which usually traditionally was accomplished with a wet glaze; an aluminum base channel; and a setting medium, either grout or silicone. It’s a cumbersome process that has several drawbacks.

“For stairways, the only way to build up the grout to the necessary thickness was to dam the top of the base and pour grout in one section at a time,” said President Rick Kettler. Replacing a glass panel is likewise time-consuming, whether the panel is along a stairway or a horizontal run. “You have to chip out all the grout bit by bit,” Behling said.

Wagner’s system doesn’t use any products that need to dry or cure. It’s a mechanical system, consisting of an extruded aluminum C-channel, isolators, and a locking mechanism that holds the glass panel in place (see Figure 1).

19th-century Roots, 21st-century Technologies

Wagner’s dedication to investing in technology is evident across the shop floor. A case in point involves stamping. The company does a lot of stamping work, and stampings

require blanks. The company used to stamp the blanks, but the setup time for blanking tooling was lengthy. In the early 2000s the company looked for another way to handle this chore and considered a sheet laser. At the time, CO2 was the only laser choice, but management wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on such a large investment that didn’t handle red metals well, so in 2005 it purchased a waterjet cutting machine. The machine’s versatility and its ability to cut nearly every material meant that it was a welcome addition to Wagner, for blanking as well as other applications.

The company worked the machine hard, around the clock, and eventually the wear and tear started to outpace the maintenance that kept it up and running. After eight years, the company shopped around for a replacement, but not necessarily a direct replacement. Technologies had changed in the meantime, and the fiber laser had become a viable alternative to the CO2 laser.

Figure 2
Wagner’s bread and butter consists of tubular sizes that meet common construction codes such as the International Building Code (IBC), International Residential Code (IRC), American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A117.1, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design (ADASAD). Accordingly, Wagner does a lot of work with round tube in ODs from 1.50 to 2 in. but it has equipment and dies to handle a much bigger range of diameters.

“We waited for the technology to catch up,” Kettler said.

The company purchased a BySprint fiber laser machine from Bystronic. Equipped with a 60-by 120-in. bed, the machine handles the largest commercially available sheet, and it’s outfitted with a ByTrans extended loading system to maximize its efficiency. Its 4,000-watt resonator handles carbon steel up to 58 in., stainless steel up to ½ in., aluminum up to 38 in., galvanized steel up to 316 in., and other nonferrous metals up to 516 in.

Additionally, the company had taken a keen interest in expanding its tube fabricating capability, and it had researched a laser for that purpose as well.

Because much of the company’s tubular work involves handrails, which most building codes restrict to ODs from 1.50 to 2.00 in., Wagner’s machines need to accommodate this range. However, its OEM work means that it needs to handle a bigger range of diameters. The machine it purchased, a Mazak FabriGear 300, is a 6-axis machine that handles big tube and pipe, up to 11.8-in.-OD round pipe or 8 in. square and up to 26 ft. long.

The diameter and length it handles are just two of the benefits to Wagner; the speed and versatility of laser cutting technology are two more. For example, some Wagner products need a large number of holes. Handrail systems that use cable as the barrier need 22 holes per post (11 holes on 3½-in. centers on both sides of the post). Making that many holes along a length of tube, and making them quickly, in big lot sizes, would be mind-numbing at best for a drill press operator. On the other hand, this is an excellent application for a laser machine equipped with an automatic loader/unloader. The other sort of work Wagner does, angled cutting and intricate beveling and time-consuming coping, takes advantage of the machine’s 6-axis versatility.

“The laser really fits into the spectrum of our products,” Behling said. “It brings a new layer of capability, useful for both handrails and OEM work.”

The company recently invested in a second Romer coordinate measuring machine (CMM), equipped with a laser head for spot-on measurements, and it augmented its fleet of bending machines with a 6-axis Crippa draw bender. The company has tooling to bend up to 4-in. Schedule 40 pipe (see Figure 2).

Of course, all of the advanced equipment in the world can’t overcome the vagaries of steel. The variations that inevitably crop up from one batch of steel to the next mean that making a handrail is one thing, but making a straight handrail is something else altogether.

“We’re very good at straightening,” Behling said. “We use quite a few tricks and techniques to make sure handrails come out true, whether it’s how we bend, overbend, use shims, distribute the weld heat, something else (see Figure 3). Polishing itself can be a bending or a straightening process. It’s all in how the heat is distributed, which we influence by changing speeds and pressures,” he said.

Navigating the Waters of an Ever-changing Industry

Part of Wagner’s success is its market knowledge: specifically, understanding the market’s strengths and weaknesses; changes it’s going through; and its idiosyncrasies.

Figure 3
Because railing systems are long-length products, a misalignment of a few degrees at one end can lead to an error of several inches at the other. An alignment table equipped with various clamps helps to ensure the handrail is straight and, if the application is a staircase, that it conforms to the specified rise and run.

  • The conventional instruction, “Put up a handrail,” is no longer good enough. These days it’s more along these lines: “Install a handrail system that meets the building code’s structural requirement and send me all of the engineering documentation to provide to the local building inspector.”
  • Industry standards and building codes can be a big help to a manufacturer like Wagner, providing benchmarks for quality and safety that some manufacturers meet and others exceed. When producing components, Wagner relies on standards set forth by the Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association (BHMA).

But sometimes, it’s not all cut-and-dried.

“We focus on providing railings designed for safety and focus on products that meet structural and dimensional requirements,” Kettler said. “National Fire Protection Association [NFPA], IBC, IRC, ANSI, and the ADASAD are the model codes and standards used throughout the country. In some areas they overlap, so that makes our job easier. However, in some cases the some local jurisdiction has its own interpretation, so that makes the job more challenging.”

  • Wagner also has to pay close attention to code changes and remains actively involved with the various code-writing agencies.
  • “Some of the engineering standards for this industry have been ratcheted up over the last 15 years or so,” Kettler said. For example, construction materials often are tested by means of a direct hit from a 9-lb. section of 2-by-4 fired at 50 feet per second. That might sound extreme, but it’s driven by the Florida Building Code (FBC) which, in turn, is driven by hurricane activity (see Hurricane Andrew).

    For R & B Wagner, this means that a glass railing system used as a guard must be tested to verify that it meets this standard. Wagner has its own test bed so it knows how much stress a glass railing system can handle.

  • The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990 and updated in 2010, also has had a big impact on architecture, construction, and product design. Intended to prevent discrimination, the law requires public buildings, facilities, and transportation systems to provide access to people with disabilities. Perhaps the most obvious and visible architectural change is the use of ramps, lined with handrails, to provide access for people using wheelchairs and other assistive devices.
  • During the last 60 years or so, the company has focused primarily on manufacturing and distributing steel railing components, but in recent years the company has seen an increased demand for prefabricated stainless steel products.
  • Wagner’s OEM work also has changed over the decades. “Twenty years ago we would make a component for an OEM,” Kettler said. “No longer. Now we make assemblies, for the most part.” It also has to stay on top of the dimensional tolerances that vary from one application to the next (see Figure 4).
  • Perhaps the most fundamental change, as the company has invested in new equipment and refined its knowledge about working metals along the way, is one that nearly everyone involved in bending tube and pipe—the so-called black art—would agree with.

“We’ve watched metalworking go from art to science,” Kettler said.

Recruitment and Retention in the Finishing Department

Like most manufacturers, Wagner struggles to fill job vacancies from time to time. The pool of experience and knowledge simply isn’t as deep as it once was.

“I learned a lot from World War II vets when I was new to this industry,” Behling said. “These days many of the skilled craftsmen are simply gone, so the young guys who came into this

industry in the last few years don’t have many mentors with decades of experience to learn from. Quite a bit of manufacturing work left this country over the last few years, but now that some of it is coming back, we don’t have the skilled workforce to handle it.”

This doesn’t stop Wagner from recruiting people, but it has had to adapt to the changing workforce. While many manufacturing jobs require a strong mechanical aptitude, finishing is fundamentally different from that.

Figure 4
The importance of dimensional accuracy at Wagner can’t be understated. Some of the parts are straightforward, like bent tube coming off of a bender (left). Others are much more complex, like flanges welded to bent tubes to make exhaust manifold assemblies (right). Bending stresses and weld heat must be carefully controlled to prevent distortion.

“Most people who are really good at finishing are artistic,” Behling said. “Many of them have hobbies like photography or pottery or sculpture. They have a keen eye for appearance and details.”

Once they’re hired, keeping employees is a matter of keeping them happy, and accordingly, Wagner places quite a bit of importance on variety in the finishing department.

First, mixing up the work mixes up the physical stresses, distributing them so they’re less repetitive. Behling himself is no stranger to repetitive stresses; he transitioned from finisher to former finisher shortly after he started having trouble with simple tasks like buttoning clothes.

Second, variety often comes in the form of a challenging one-off project. An old copper kettle, antiquated farm implements, parts for a hot rod—Wagner rarely turns down a request, no matter how unusual. In fact, the more unusual, the better. The company doesn’t make much money on this sort of work, and it sounds like it’s more hassle and disruption than anything, but it’s all part of the company’s intention to have the best finishing department around.

“Every craftsman, every artisan, every skilled worker in a field like this needs variety to keep his skills sharp,” Behling said.

The variety at Wagner ensures that employees’ skills will stay sharp for a long time to come.

Hurricane Andrew

Of all the natural disasters to have occurred in the U.S., Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and among the five deadliest. The humanitarian disaster that accompanied and followed the storm led to a sense of helplessness that is still palpable a decade later. A turning point in New Orleans’ history, it’s a case study in everything going wrong at the same time—the size of the storm, the vast evacuation, a large contingent of residents who wouldn’t or couldn’t leave, failed levees, and a response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that was later criticized as too little and too late. Approximately 80 percent of the city eventually was submerged.

For all that, a much smaller storm more than a decade earlier drove big changes throughout Florida. Hurricane Andrew caused about 25 percent of the damage of Katrina and caused 65 fatalities, a tiny number compared to the nearly 1,900 who died during Katrina. The relief efforts were disorganized and fragmented, which changed the way Florida works with FEMA, but the biggest revelation concerned construction practices. According to “Hurricane Andrew’s Legacy: ‘Like a Bomb’ in Florida” by Greg Allen, the building codes used in the region were good, but substandard materials, shoddy construction practices, and questionable inspection practices were the culprits.

According to the article, the amount of damage “… differed greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood.” In some areas, the damage was severe; in others, the worst damage amounted to a few missing shingles. “The difference was in how they were built,” the article stated.

Following are excerpts from “Hurricane Andrew 20 years later: Everything changed” by Jonathan Simmons:

  • The massive hurricane … left a 25-mile-wide arc of battered homes, flooded streets and felled trees and power lines … ripping away the state’s pretenses of safety along with much of Miami-Dade’s infrastructure.
  • According to John Gonzales, Port St. Lucie’s deputy director of public works at the time Andrew struck: “Most of the homes in Cutler Ridge had barrel tile roofs. They were supposed to be nailed down — and they weren’t cemented, or nailed down or anything. They were just placed up there. And they became missiles.”
  • Bob Keating, community development director for Indian River County, was quoted as saying, “The drive-by inspections that came to light after Hurricane Andrew were an indication that it’s not just the code that’s important, it’s making sure the code is enforced.”

The result was a series of extensive change that swept aside four separate construction codes, replacing them with a single code, the Florida Building Code. It sets the standards for construction materials, processes, and inspections for the entire state and has supplementary requirements for southeastern Florida, which bears the brunt of hurricane activity.

One result is that many window manufacturers make impact-resistant products that comply with Miami-Dade TAS 201. It stipulates that windows must withstand the impact of a 9-lb. 2-by-4 fired from an air cannon, launched at 50 feet per second, aimed directly at the window.

About the Author
FMA Communications Inc.

Eric Lundin

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Eric Lundin worked on The Tube & Pipe Journal from 2000 to 2022.