How They Did That: Chimney Caps
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – April 15, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – Rain, snow and rodents can make a home out of your chimney of you don’t have something covering the top of it during any season.
At Cypress Metals if you take a look inside a factory where chimney caps are made you will see that workers are able to make nine chimney caps a day rather than only three like they used to. That is all due to a very convenient precision laser cutter that they use. The process begins with a raw, flat piece of sheet metal. Then the sheet goes into a machine that precisely cuts the sheet of metal with a laser.
How does the laser know how long and wide to cut the chimney cap? Well an employee has to enter in the measurements into a machine which is called a radan. This gives them the ability to cut the cap out on their fiber laser, which is the key to efficiency and less expense.
“It might be a little easier than people think but it also is harder,” said Brice Groves, Cypress Metals’ shop foreman. The reason that it is easier is because of the technology that Cypress Metals has available to them. The fiber laser has taken a six hour job and made it into about a two hour job as far as the fabrication goes. Cypress is the only manufacturer that is using this type of resource to create these chimney caps.
After they cut the chimney caps out another machine bends the metal and then an employee rivets the sheets together. Then they are delivered and installed to the customers house for a fraction of the price and quicker than most.
