Grain Belt is expanding its powder coat paint facility another 14,000 sq foot.

The additional warehouse space will consist of a shipping and receiving office, provide a storm shelter/break room for employees, new restrooms, and offices for staff. We also plan to add an automatic in-line shot blast machine for part cleaning, an additional burn off oven, put air compressors and accessory equipment into a separate addition to the North to enhance work flow and cut down handling time.

Additionally, we plan to install air conditioning and humidity control to the powder paint environmental room to keep any airborne contaminants out of powder paint and equipment to insure optimum application conditions for increased quality.

The main fabrication and layout shop will be retooled with new cranes and runways. A new additional jib crane is planned for the layout area to assist in the shearing and forming of large parts. Two new Cincinnati additions have been purchased for layout. A GoForm 40 ton x 3 ft. CNC press brake and a Proform 90 ton x 8 ft. CNC press brake will modernize our forming capabilities with high speed, extremely accurate forming and quick change tooling to reduce setups. We are also evaluating and pricing a robotic welding cell that would add capacity and high tolerance weldments into our plethora of customer offerings.

The laser department is adding a state of the art Trumpf Tru Matic 1000 fiber laser and punch combo that can do numerous operations such as laser cutting, hole punching, small part forming, tapping, countersinking, part marking and many other value added operations right at the laser table. The table consists of a grid of brushes rather than steel slats that will greatly reduce scratching on cosmetic parts. A nitrogen generation machine is also being investigated for possible inclusion in our laser project.

Ground breaking has commenced on the powder coat addition. Check out our progress on the new construction gallery here. Over the next few months, machines and construction materials will be delivering and installing. The complete project should be done by April 1, 2019.