Wilson Point Park

Children’s Fishing Tournament held at Wilson Point Park, Sat, August 1, 2009

Job Facts
Tons of steel: 890 feet of stainless steel cable rail
Contractor: Corman-Imbach Marine, Inc.
Project Manager: Ken Sines
Sub Contractor: B&B Welding Company, Inc.
Erector: B&B Welding Company, Inc.

During the 1950’s, the Martin Marietta Company manufactured a legendary plane — the SeaMaster — in a small cove on the Chesapeake. A flying leviathan, the SeaMaster briefly served as the linchpin of the US nuclear defenses. And it was built in the same cove that today is Wilson Point Park.

Fifty years later, the park is home to boaters and fishermen and a brand new pier constructed of B&B steel.

In the same spirit of innovation, problem solving and smart engineering, Corman-Imbach Marine hired B&B to fabricate the steel for the new pier, including a promenade, boat ramp, and 2 fishing piers with handicap access. On the face of it, the job was simple: fabricate the steel tube post and railings, precision drill for 890 feet of stainless steel cable rail, and assemble with rubber grommets, stainless steel clevises, tamperproof turnbuckles and terminating ends with tamperproof screws. All straightforward stuff. Except the shoreline threw us a geometric curveball.

“The pier had to conform to the shoreline,” says Ralph Eisenhuth. “But the shoreline was not straight. In fact, it was far from straight.” Bends, curves, dips — one look at the pile drawings convinced us to assemble the railings in 12 ft. sections joined by splice connections. This approach called for a fair amount of precision welding, each section connected by a split fit at the splice. “Our real challenge was to maintain the geometry of each stainless steel cable opening to a shoreline riddled with bends,” says Ralph.

But nothing fires up the B&B guys like geometric complexity. We put our heads together and designed an innovative fixture system behind our shop. First, we took some scrap angle iron and tack-welded it into a fixture sized to hold each 12 ft. section of pier rail. Next, we hung the fixture to a 10ft work platform. Elevated, we could now rotate the fixture allowing our guys to weld in a flat position. Like a ferris wheel, we could weld, rotate, and weld all the while maintaining the geometry of the railing holes. The shoreline may be curvy like a pretzel, but the rail sections fit nice and snug with the steel cable inflow running dead straight for 890 feet.

“This was one of those projects that gives us sleepless nights trying to concoct the perfect solution,” says B&B’s Dennis McCartney. “And this one was actually pretty slick.”

While our pier won’t save the free world from a Soviet menace, it will provide decades of good folks with a place to fish, launch their boats and stroll with their girl. And for that, we can hold our heads high.