You often hear how most athletes only want to play against competitors of their own level to make the effort worthwhile. Most fans don’t like to watch one-sided games that end in double digit vs zero scores.
The Sure Flow Engineering team reflects this spirit, and while we consider our abilities superior to many of our competitors, we always like a good challenge, and our customers provide us with a constant flow of excellent opportunities to show our abilities.
Sometimes the challenges even come from within.
Sure Flow Equipment President Penni Boxall had a small challenge on her boat.
Seemed simple, she just needed drawers made for shelves in a closet. Penni’s husband built the cabinet but felt wood drawers would take up too much of the space. On smaller boats space is at a premium, so optimal efficiency is key to maximizing functionality. And in this case, optimizing efficiency for storing bulky sweaters for those chilly mornings on the water.
Enter the Sure Flow Engineering and Fabrication team.
The solution: fabricate the drawers out of perforated steel. This allowed the drawers to offer maximum strength while using a minimal amount of the space available.
Penni’s husband made the template from wood.
As with so many of our custom fabrication projects the shelves were an odd shape and size. That’s why so many customers come to Sure Flow.
One of Sure Flow’s fabrication team, Sean Taylor, was tasked with the project and developed a plan to move from the wood template to a clean, strong, space-efficient final product.
The final product came out beautifully, almost too beautiful to have out of view in a cabinet.
We’re used to this though. So many of the engineering challenges we’re presented with involve fabricating strong, functional straining equipment to fit in areas that are either space challenged or involve having to be incorporated into an existing production line. They require creativity to provide the same straining capability in a less than optimal product configuration. They need the team to be at the top of their game.
In this case not only was there a space restriction there were operating conditions to factor in. Like many of our fabricated products they were ending up in a marine environment which requires unique approaches to material choices. And while this boat doesn’t spend any time dealing with 20-foot swells in the North Atlantic, many of our final engineering products do end up operating in these sorts of environments. So these shelves were over engineered to handle the conditions, whatever they may be.
This project may not have had the profile of some of the amazing industrial processes that our products are engineered for, but it was met with the same enthusiasm your next custom fabricated challenge will require.
Our Engineering and Custom Fabrication Team, and in this case our Screen and Basket Department are never afraid to tackle something new! We’re always up for the next challenge. Bring it on!
Below are some photos of the fabrication process.
The final product installed in the cabinet.
