This custom designed and engineered motor gear box retrofit for a planer mill was done from start to finish in house here at Peninsula Iron Works. Our team of engineers has years of experience designing equipment for industrial applications. How can we help you deliver success on your next project?
Autumn has arrived, Winter is coming, time for some rehab?
"There are only 2 seasons, construction and winter." Those of you in the construction industry have probably heard this sentiment more often than you would like and bringing it up again is probably just annoying. But there is some truth to these sayings. Strike while the iron is hot or make hay while the sun shines are a couple more that we hear less often and I am now revealing my age by using them here, but they all refer to the same basic concept of taking the opportunity while it exists to be as productive as possible because the time will likely come that the work will be much harder to complete due to changes in conditions. Winter can be that time for you to plan your next project and take care of some much needed maintenance. Maybe you have limped your way close to the end on a worn out piece of equipment and though you plan on pushing forward with your work, now is the best time to pull it from service and return it to full function and capacity.
This is Peninsula Crusher Works season. Is it time to tear down that crusher that has worked non-stop for the last eight or nine months? We can take care of that for you. Wherever you are, send it to us and we will put it back to full operational efficiency, giving you the peace of mind that as winter settles on us, spring, or rather construction, is just around the corner and having Old Reliable, be reliable again would be a wonderful thing. Allowing you to strike while the iron is hot and make hay while the sun shines. Whatever condition your equipment is in, we can probably make run it like the day it crushed its first rock. You got to knock the new off of it, let us put the new back into it. Then you can have all of the fun of knocking the new right back off of it again. Because after all, you are the do-ers, the makers, the builders, the people that get things done.
New Product - Peninsula Crusher Works heavy duty belt tensioners.
Here is the first look at the new Peninsula Crusher Works heavy duty belt tensioners. We are shipping 18 of these out to a mining customer this morning on a 5 day turnaround. We offer them in multiple styles, lengths, and material grades depending on the customer application. Give us a call 503-286-4461. (As shown made from carbon steel with 18" of stroke)
Innovation is in our Company DNA
At Peninsula Iron Works we have always been innovators. A part of our history is the first successful chain saw. Built right here in the same building we occupy today. It was met with great resistance but like with most successful technologies, eventually it couldn't be ignored and the world changed forever in a small way. The tradition continues with everything we do. We are constant tinkerers and inventors and have rebuilt our machinery multiple times as we discovered new technologies. From planer mill to milling machine, from hydraulic drives to electric motors and then to AC servo drives and ballscrews with CNC controls and a communication network to tie it all together.
We haven't been in the chain saw business for decades. We have changed with the times and the market. The buildings have grown and evolved, but the old timbers in some sections are the same ones that were erected in 1917. We have survived and rebuilt after fire tried to destroy the original building, which was much more common back then.
We apply all of this history and knowledge to our daily work. Knowing we can build things faster and better and constantly changing our approach to problem solving. We never say no to a project based only on its complexity. In fact we gravitate towards those particular challenges so our portfolio and competency grows with each job. Ideas are constantly tested and refined and ultimately implemented in our shop and on our customers projects. Little by little improving our world and the lives and livelihoods of our customers.
What this means for you is that when you partner with us, you tap into this innovative spirit and process and receive the best possible final product that can be delivered. We do this, in the words of JFK "not because they are easy, but because they are hard". Of course he was talking about going to the moon but the work that you, your company and your employees do is no less important. The lives of future generations will be affected by the things you build. You can read more about our history and the history of many others from that era in forestry, in The Big Woods, by Ellis Lucia copy-write 1975. Experience the innovation and results for yourself when you trust your equipment or project to us.
The first portable chainsaw built by PIW being used in the forests of the Pacific NW, photo from the US Forest service, also appears in The Big Woods, by Ellis Lucia.
Peninsula Crusher Works is making big problems seem a little smaller...
Peninsula Crusher Works is making your big problems seem just a little bit smaller:) This Pegson jaw is just over 6' long weighing about 8k lbs, but sitting on Frankenstein getting the bearing seats re-bored it looks just like another day at Peninsula Crusher Works.
Heavy Industrial is cooler than you might think...
How many people out there truly love what they do? Here at Peninsula Iron Works we do! Every day is a new challenge and that's what makes it fun. If what we do was easy, everyone would do it. Happy Friday to everyone! #makingindustrialcoolagain :)
Broadway Bridge Rall Wheels.
Wheels in motion
By: Garrett Andrews in Scrolling Box August 29, 2017 5:32 pm
Bobby Parker, a pile buck with Hamilton Construction, examines a weld while working on a project to replace four steel wheels that help raise and lower the Broadway Bridge. (Sam Tenney/DJC)
In the early days of the 20th century, civil engineers were in an arms race to find the best ways to open a bridge.
One novel method was tried out by engineer Ralph Modjeski for Portland’s Broadway Bridge, completed in 1913. A Rall mechanism employs giant, 8-foot-diameter steel wheels that roll along tracks high above the center of the bridge.
To explain the mechanism’s complex movement to the uninitiated, it helps to have visual aids, said Jon Henrichsen, Multnomah County’s division manager for bridges.
“It’s one weird, elliptical motion; it’s much easier to show with pictures, or, better yet, a video,” he said. “This is a very complicated bridge – way more complicated, really, than it needs to be. You can build a simpler bridge that’s easier to maintain and more reliable.”
Like an evolutionary dead end, the Rall-type bascule bridge was en vogue for only about a decade before simpler, more efficient and economical systems took over. The Chicago-type bascule would become the standard of the style, an example being the Burnside Bridge. But in 2017, the Broadway Bridge and its unique design are still vital to Portland and the 32,000 people who cross the span daily. And now, after a century of rolling back and forth, its wheel-based lift mechanism needs a tune-up.
The four massive wheels have turned more conical than round, and cracks are showing up.
“There’s just a lot of issues with these,” Henrichsen said. “It’s time to replace them.”
The county has contracted with Springfield-based Hamilton Construction to replace the Broadway Bridge’s one-of-a-kind Rall wheels and the tracks and bearings, and rehabilitate the trunnion, control struts and associated structures. It’s a complex undertaking that requires a highly specialized skill set, and it presents its own engineering challenges – how to lift the bridge to swap out the wheels? How to make them?
To change the wheels, the Hamilton team is lifting the entire bridge, one 1,000-ton leaf at a time. Bridge engineer Ed Wortman likens the problem to jacking up a truck to change its tires, but in this case, no place on the bridge is hard enough to set the “jack.”
“It wasn’t designed to be lifted up into the air as we’re doing now,” Wortman said.
An 88,000-pound Rall wheel measuring eight feet in diameter is one of four on the Broadway Bridge that is being replaced as part of a $13.5 million project that will last through December. (Sam Tenney/DJC)
The solution created by OBEC Consulting Engineers of Eugene is a lift system that uses the stone and concrete piers under the bridge for bases, and thick steel plates welded to the bridge. Two 900-ton capacity jacks will work together to push thick posts upward.
This will all go on while bike and vehicle traffic and the Portland Streetcar are moving across the bridge.
“They’ll only lift it just enough to get those wheels out,” Wortman said. “Then it’s just like changing the tire on a car.”
Wortman was a bridge engineer for Multnomah County starting in the 1990s, but he began working on bridges in 1960. He’s worked part-time since his retirement in 2007, and was on site this month checking progress on the project.
“We always thought we were going to have to change these wheels, and we thought the designer probably made some accommodation for it,” he said. “Then we started looking at it, and it turned out, it wasn’t that easy.”
Ultimately, Wortman said, the decision to use the design was a financial one – it was slightly cheaper than the other two alternatives. Despite any trouble, it actually has done its job – creating the widest possible opening for ships – quite well, he said.
“It was a complicated system, but clever – but also, hard to maintain,” he said. “It’s pretty special. There’s not another bridge like it in the world.”
Each wheel supports about two million pounds of weight. But those wheels have been rolling back and forth for more than a century. The wheels are solid hunks of steel that start out about 30 to 40 percent larger before being pounded into shape. In 2017, not much metal is forged west of the Mississippi River, but VEGA contracted with Peninsula Iron Works to make the forgings.
The 88,000-pound wheels were forged – not cast, as were the originals – at Peninsula Iron Works. The original wheels had cored holes in them like spokes in a bicycle wheel, which helped make them considerably lighter. They were pounded out on the shop’s vertical boring mill, which was manufactured in 1968 but features modern automated CNC controls. They were flipped three times, and shipped on trucks with special permits.
“This is probably more accurate than they were done historically,” said James Johnson, president of Peninsula Iron Works. “Your big advantage today would be in how the materials were manufactured, compared to a casting.”
Johnson and his brother are the third generation to operate Peninsula. The fabrication shop performs 3,000 jobs per year. For this one, they were subcontracted under Vigor, which prepared plans and shipped the materials for the forgings. At more than 100 years old and the only shop like it on the West Coast, Peninsula aided the Allied war effort in World War I and mills serving the Pacific Northwest lumber industry. Its handiwork can be found nearly everywhere in the Portland area – including on all five movable bridges.
Once the new wheels are on, much testing will be needed to ensure they’re aligned with each other and the tracks are oriented perfectly. Among the updates incorporated into the project is breaking up the big metal struts that connect to the control room and pull the bridge open. Breaking them into three pieces, instead of one, makes for easier adjustments.
There will be one, final 48-hour closure over a weekend when final testing will be conducted. Once the old wheels are off, they will likely be shipped to a recycler, though the county has been in talks with the Regional Arts and Culture Council about using one in a public art installation, Henrichsen said.
In Modjeski’s day, bridges had much shorter life spans – maybe 20 years for the Broadway, Henrichsen said. The original operators of the bridge didn’t even grease its gears.
“He’d probably think we were crazy to still be operating this bridge,” Henrichsen said of Modjeski.
But a complete bridge replacement project would cost between $300 million and $400 million, and significantly impact commuters.
“After all these years, it still works well,” Wortman said. “So you can’t question the decision to build it in the first place.”
Broadway Bridge Rall wheel replacement
General contractor: Hamilton Construction
Cost: $13.5 million
Construction start: July
Expected completion: December
New Broadway Bridge Rall Wheel being turned at PIW on 20' diameter Vertical CNC lathe.
Original Rall Wheels prior to removal, Broadway Bridge, Portland, OR. Picture from the web.
New 88,000 lb Capacity Weld Positioner is bringing new capabilities to Peninsula Iron Works
Our new 88K lb capacity positioner will allow to safely position large and complex weldments in order to improve the efficiency of our fabrication team. The chuck diameter is 180" and can be customized to suit your weldments. Reach out today and find out how we can bring efficiency to your parts!
