Vane Brothers Waterfront Development
Job Facts
Start Date: March 20, 2002
Completion Date: February 2003
Architect: Gaudreau, Inc. 810 Light St., Baltimore, MD 21230
Joe Folger
Structural Engineers: Whitney, Bailey, Cox & Magnani, 849 Fairmont Ave, Suite 100, Baltimore, MD 21286
Jim Prosser
Janice Cruz
Construction Co.: Atlantic Builders Group, PO Box 70239, Baltimore, MD 21237
Brian DeLawder, Project Manager
Tony Higgins, Project Superintendent
Referral: Michael Barr, Vane Brothers
Tonnage: 251 tons
Steel Suppliers: Chaparral Steel, Coastal Steel, Durrett Sheppard Steel, Infra Metals, Metals USA, Nucor-Yamato, & Nucor Berkeley
Shipments: Pioneer Trucking, 2819-G North Point Blvd, Baltimore, MD 21222
Machinery Used: Peddinghaus: Beamline Punch, FPB 1800 Plasma Punch and AFPS623 Anglemaster
Employees: All B&B Welding Company employees had a hand in making the project a success.
For more than 100 years, The Vane Brothers Company has been a fixture on the Chesapeake Bay. In 1898, the company opened a two-story chandlery, or one-stop maritime supplies store, in Baltimore’s Fells’ Point. Selling everything from canned goods to hindquarters of beef, bilge pumps to coils of manila rope, Vane Brothers supplied the schooners and skipjacks on Pier 6. Today, in their fourth generation of family ownership, the company has evolved into one of the Mid-Atlantic’s premier marine fuel and transportation businesses.
With dizzying growth, the company has cornered the bunkering market, that is, the refueling of ships with diesel, marine lubricants and potable water. Operating ten tugboats and twenty-six barges, the company has outgrown its current facilities. With a nod to its maritime history and a peek to the future, Vane Brothers is building a new corporate headquarters, a modern day building designed to look like a nineteenth century warehouse. It will even include a “Pot Belly Room,” a circular room where the watermen of old once gathered to seal deals and talk of the sea.
That’s where B&B Welding enters into the story. Previously, B&B had fabricated support steel and bulkhead caps for Vane Brothers’ Pier 11. Pleased with the work, B&B was asked to fabricate the structurally exposed steel for the three components of their new corporate complex, the Mother House, Knuckle, and Warehouse. To simulate an old time warehouse, the trusses will be exposed throughout the buildings. “The challenge,” according to B&B’s Dennis McCartney, “ is to make modern steel look like old timey riveted construction.” To create this effect, B&B bolted together the trusses, joining them with round button head tension-controlled (TC) bolts that resemble old-style riveted construction. By bolting (not welding) together the trusses, this process not only proved more cost effective but also gave the steel the look of nineteenth century construction. In addition, the trusses — 40 in all — were uniformly bolted so that all the bolts face the same direction when one enters the buildings.
With beams, columns and custom-made trusses in a high ceiling design, the job required complex geometric fabrication. The 6 dormers, for example, intersect a sloping roof with metal deck and architectural embellishments, requiring a top with a 17ft. 4 in. radius. The Mother House trusses included a bottom chord with a 35 ft. 7 inch radius; and the top chord with a gabled 10 in 12 slope. To fabricate this 350 tons job, B&B utilized all of its sophisticated CNC machinery and manpower.
Working directly with the architect and engineers, the job has undergone numerous iterations in the design stage, which B&B, with its in house detailing company, Chesapeake Design Services, quickly executed. In fact, with so many last minute changes, it was remarked by the structural engineer that B&B Welding — thanks to its range of CNC machinery and on-campus detailing shop — was about the only place in town that could have handled this job. With the work near completion, how have we done? Let’s just say that Atlantic Builders Group has been so pleased with our work that they have nominated us for a coveted Craftsmanship Award under category of architecturally exposed structural steel.
To further B&B’s technological superiority and offer our client’s value added services, B&B, starting with the Vane Brothers project, has added a virtual tour, an online 3-D walk through the job site. A particularly useful application to architects and engineers, both parties can now electronically interface the job’s detailing. By going to the B&B FTP site, typing in a password and username, clients may download drawings and view welds, bolts and connections.
For B&B Welding, a second generation family business, the opportunity to help build the new world headquarters of a fourth generation family business has been an inspiration. And to be nominated for a Craftsmanship Award in the process, that makes it all the sweeter.
