For the Holloway Co., manufacturing various vessels up to 13 ft. in diameter, 80 ft. in length and with as much as 60,000-lb. weight capacities is nothing out of the ordinary. In addition to steel rolling and bending for structural components used in the aerospace, architectural, industrial, transportation and commercial industries, the Saginaw, Texas, fabrication shop produces steel tanks, high-pressure boilers and pressure vessels for industrial, construction, storage and agricultural applications.
“What differentiates us from the competition is our lead times and part quality,” says Hunter Holloway, vice president of the Holloway Co. “While most of our jobs are custom in nature, we turn them around in the shortest time possible. For structural jobs, those times range from seven to 10 days, and for custom bending, they run between five and 10 days.”
Job lot sizes vary from those requiring 1,000 pieces to others involving only three or four finished components per month over a year. Among the shop’s specialties is production of ASME code vessels, SAC cement pods, partial data cylinders, atmospheric tanks, skid silos and more. Holloway’s structural steel rolling services encompass more than 20 years of experience when it comes to rolling for cylindrical shapes, angles, square and rectangle tubes, channels, T-beams, I-beams, wide flange beams, flat bars, pipes, rails and tracks.
Overcoming challenges
Holloway’s 53,000-sq.-ft. rolling facility accommodates up to 120-ft. lengths of material and houses more than 15 pieces of equipment. The shop rolls steel plates measuring from 17 gauge up to 3 in. thick, and according to Holloway, the biggest challenge is maintaining structural size and keeping the material from wrinkling or deforming during the rolling or bending processes.
“It all comes down to thickness and required radii,” he says. “The tighter the radius, the more of a challenge.”
To overcome those challenges, the shop purchased its first Davi machine, a plate rolling machine, in 2011. Because of the exceptional service and support, Holloway says the shop expanded with the addition of more Davi plate rolling machines and eventually angle rollers.
For plate rolling, Holloway’s smallest machine is a Davi MCA for thin gauge up to 6-ft.-wide, 0.250-in.-thick material. Another of the shop’s Davi machines is an MCB that accommodates 10-ft.-wide plates that are 0.250 in. to 0.750 in. thick and rolls material for the shop’s 6-ft. and 8-ft. size tanks. The shop also has a machine that rolls plate up to 1.625 in. thick.
Holloway also has a Davi machine that it uses to roll 10 ft.-wide, 2-in.-thick material into inside diameters as small as 36 in. A common part it rolls is the interior for huge commercial laundry machines, producing about 200 parts every six months for the job.
Consistent performance
Holloway’s Davi plate rolling machines provide high repeatability, productivity and ease of use. The 4-roll-style machines incorporate the latest, most advanced rolling technology. Their bottom rolls clamp plate material to guarantee perfect control over plate position throughout the entire forming process.
Special planetary guides actuate the machine side rolls, which then deliver the necessary bending force Holloway needs to achieve its tightest diameters. Patented Servo-Tronic systems ensure perfect parallelism for high machine accuracy, while advanced CNCs provide fully automated production processes.
“The performance of our Davi machines is very consistent,” Holloway says. “Even with the often extreme Texas temperatures, the machines maintain their accuracy. We tried other brands of equipment, but those machines were unable to perform as well or last as long as our Davi machines do. Plus, Davi’s technical support plays a key role in our operational success. With the other brands of machines we’ve had, the main issue had always been a lack of service and support.”
With its Davi machine that handles plate thicknesses up to 1.625 in., Holloway produced one of its biggest custom silos that was 60 ft. long with a 15 in. diameter. The shop did all the cutting, fabricating, rolling and welding and shipped the complete silo from its facility.
Reliable shop
While the Davi machine CNCs are the most advanced available, Holloway says the shop typically relies on its highly experienced operators, some of which have 45 years of experience, to run the machines in manual mode. Most of the shop’s employees have been rolling and bending steel since the 1980s and 1990s, and amazingly, the shop experiences little turnover.
“When an individual joins the Holloway team, they tend to stick with us for a long time,” Holloway says.
For those employees, the basic bending and rolling processes really haven’t changed much over the years. What has changed, according to Holloway, is the technology and machines.
“Today’s equipment, like the Davi plate rolling machines, is much faster and gives us the ability to measure parts without having to remove them from the machine,” Holloway says. “This helps shorten lead times and improves on quality. It’s this level of technology paired with service and support that keeps us coming back to Davi.”
