Page 32 - MetalForming-Aug-2018-issue

FABRICATION
CB Fabricating
Gives Lasers an A Grade
Sales volume for this Indiana fabricator is up nearly 40 percent, largely due to its lasers.
BY JOE JANCSURAK, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
A 4-yr., $4-million expansion at Anderson, IN-based CB Fabricating included these Amada NT Laser Flex Cell CO2-laser and Ensis 3015 AJ fiber-laser cutting machines.
Chris Barkdull may be a self-pro- claimed turret man, but he is totally on board with lasers. And with good reason. As owner of CB Fab- ricating, Inc., an Anderson, IN-based sheetmetal fabricator, Barkdull says the addition of an Amada Ensis 3015 fiber-laser cutting machine, which now complements an Amada NT Laser Flex Cell CO2 laser, has sent his sales volume soaring, growing from $2.5 million last year to a projected $4 million this year. “I’ve never seen this volume of business at any shop in our area. It’s unbeliev- able,” says the fabricating veteran.
From ‘Heat and Beat’ to Today
It was 45 years ago that Barkdull gained his start in his parents’ metal- fabricating business, where, he says, “everything was laid out by hand with a template, cut with bandsaws or saber saws, and formed on a leaf brake. As Dad would say, ‘it was a heat-and-beat operation.’”
The family business sold in the mid- ’90s, but the lessons learned from his dad, who previously worked as a metal fabricator for General Motors, and his mom, an interior decorator and “finan- cial guru” who managed the company’s
30 MetalForming/August 2018
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