Dunbar first served Worthington Steel when the firm built their multi-story galvanizing operation in Delta, Ohio in 1996.

Dunbar installed:

  • Pro-Eco pickle line
  • hot dip galvanizing line
  • Selas furnace
  • all associated piping
  • all structural steel
  • slitter line

Two decades later, Worthington brought Dunbar back to replace 90-feet of the annealing furnace, adding 21 feet in the process to further improve quality and galvanizing capacity. Dunbar’s crews minimized downtime by pre-assembling platform sections as modules on the production floor and set 90-tons of steel plus 90-feet of pre-heat modules, including all terminal equipment. Working around the clock, crews removed old furnace sections, set the new pre-heat modules in place and added three sections of jet-cool modules for the processing system. Only 16 days total were required from the start of construction to the start of production.

In 2018, Dunbar again worked for Worthington Steel to replace two burner sections at the lower end of the pre-heater. Dunbar crews cut the existing bracing away to allow removal of the two lower burner modules, supporting 90-feet of furnace by installing temporary structural bracing. This was accomplished over a ten-day shut down period.

“Everybody else who looked at the project said it couldn’t be done,” noted Skip Galbraith, Project Manager. “We did it. Dunbar loves a challenge. It’s all about EXTENSIVE pre-planning. We started planning in September for a December outage. We did the original installation so we were knew what was there and we understood what needed to be done. It was quite the project.

We cut the existing structure at the 107-foot mark and took out the top. Then we added two modules — set the steel, then set the new equipment; set the steel, then set the new equipment. That furnace is 121-feet tall and we replaced 90-feet of vertical pre-heat furnace. At the other end of the unit we added a floor between two existing floors to support a new After Pot Cooling (APC) module. That one went in at the 55-foot elevation mark. We built the structure ahead of time downstream from the furnace in space that didn’t interfere with production. We installed the steel and the APC module during the outage. To get it all done we kept 130 craftsmen busy on that project in two shifts, working around the clock for 16 days.”