How We Use Technology to Customize Our Products
How Purlin Mill Steel Buildings Uses Technology to Customize Your Steel Building
Intro
The pre-engineered metal building industry continues to raise the bar in design and engineering, and Purlin Mill Steel Buildings, one of the top manufacturers of pre-engineered metal buildings in the Pacific Northwest, is built to keep pace. We continuously invest in state-of-the-art equipment to produce the highest-quality pre-engineered steel building kits with the precision our customers depend on: high-quality components, an exact fit, and efficient assembly once the kit reaches the job site.
Our manufacturing equipment is the backbone of every kit we ship to the contractors, businesses, and property owners who build across the Pacific Northwest. Every component is made to meet our standards for quality and precision, with no shortcuts.
A few years ago, we added a new roll-form machine to manufacture our own Architectural Standing Seam Roofing (SSR-18), a mechanically seamed structural panel with injected butyl mastic. Since then, we’ve continued to grow our capabilities with three pieces of equipment that let us tailor steel buildings to almost any specification: the Jorns Heavy Gauge Double Folding Machine, the Schlebach MASTERCUT slitting system, and the Stealth Night Hawk laser cutter.
Jorns Heavy Gauge Double Folding Machine, the First in North America
Amy’s Note: EMBED VIDEO
In November 2020, The Purlin Mill installed a Jorns Heavy Gauge Double Folding Machine at our Hubbard facility, the first of its kind in North America, and capable of forming materials up to 40 feet long. With it, we became the first company in the U.S. to offer this exclusive bent-metal product to customers.
This machine produces exceptionally clean, accurate bends. It can form diagonal bends, half-round bends, tapered ends for a tight fit, open or closed hems, and much more. It handles every profile of metal building trim and flashing, and it can produce a 40-foot architectural gutter with tapered ends, concealed-fastener wall panels in standard or custom profiles, column covers, tapered roof panels, and heavy-gauge structural shapes, all up to 40 feet in length.
The list of what it can form is, for practical purposes, endless. This means architects and engineers can design with a known material, but have far more options to add style and functionality to their projects.
“It [Jorns] can bend thicker steel than most machines and can do it with a level of fine-tuning–much of it automated–no other machine is even close to capable of,” says Don Branch, President of Purlin Mill in this SEDCOR article. “Plus, while many bending machines work with a max of twenty-foot sheets, the Jorns works with pieces up to forty feet. As long as what they want is made out of steel, there is a good chance we can make it for them. And quickly. Plus, if the project needs to be replicated, we can show the machine a barcode of the specs, and it will immediately bring it up, ready to go.”
Bending capabilities:
49″ maximum throat depth
40′ maximum bending length
Steel from 30 gauge to 11 gauge
Aluminum up to 4.0 mm
Stainless steel up to 2.00 mm
Schlebach MASTERCUT Slitting System
Amy’s Note: OPTIONAL Embed Video?
Alongside the Jorns machine, we installed a new cut-to-length line equipped with a straightener, slitter, and strippable film applicator. The Schlebach MASTERCUT slitting system allows us to level, cut to length, and slit flat sheet with or without strippable film up to 40 feet long.
The result is a quality, flattened, straightened flat sheet, cut to length and slit to width, exactly the way our customers need it. It also feeds the flat sheet directly to the Jorns Double Folding Machine, so the two work hand in hand. Together, these two additions use state-of-the-art technology to deliver the best products and service available today.
Cutting capacity:
20,000 lb. maximum coil weight
49.5″ maximum coil width
Steel from 29 gauge to 14 gauge
Aluminum up to 2.00 mm
16-gauge stainless steel, copper, and titanium zinc
Stealth Night Hawk Laser Cutting Machine
Amy’s Note: Optional EMBED VIDEO
In 2024, The Purlin Mill added a brand-new Stealth Night Hawk SS2015CP 8000-watt laser cutting machine. It allows us to fabricate clean, precise steel connection plates for both cold-formed and red iron pre-engineered steel buildings.
It also opens the door to custom work: we can produce custom shapes, holes, and slots directly from our customers’ drawings, offering a full custom-cutting service.
The machine cuts a 5′ x 10′ area across a wide range of alloys and thicknesses:
Carbon steel up to 1.25″
Stainless steel up to 1.25″
Aluminum up to 0.75″
Brass up to 0.5″
Copper up to 0.5″
When Precision Meets Possibility
We’re proud to operate the first Jorns Heavy Gauge Double Folding Machine in North America, a true game-changer in custom steel forming. From tapered ends and closed hems to 40-foot panel lengths and heavy-gauge structural shapes, it gives us the flexibility to meet your exact specs, no matter how complex the project.
In short, this equipment lets us:
Form steel from 30 gauge to 11 gauge
Work in stainless steel, aluminum, and copper
Deliver clean, accurate bends every time.
Produce custom gutters, column wraps, panels, flashing, and more.
For us, this is more than machinery. It’s our promise to bring precision, speed, and quality to every steel building component we manufacture.
Ready to talk about custom steel? Let’s connect and find out what The Purlin Mill can build for your next project.