New Infrastructure Bill Includes Buy America Guidance for Iron and Steel

Steel manufacturing trade groups lauded the news that the new Infrastructure Bill includes a provision stating all iron and steel used in projects outlined in the bill must be produced in the United States. Metal Center News reported this week, “The guidance further requires all manufactured products in the project must be produced domestically. The product itself must be manufactured here, and the components of the product must represent 55 percent or more of the total cost of the product. All construction materials must also be manufactured in the U.S.”

According to a White House memo, projects funded by the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package must only use iron and steel produced in the U.S starting May 14. The requirement includes all manufacturing processes for the metals, from initial melting stage thru application of coatings. The announcement also includes a process to waive those requirements if domestic materials are not reasonably available or would raise the cost of the project by more than 25%. (Source: Construction Dive)

Magnificent Metal Monday – Celebrating America

Photo courtesy of History.com.

Among the 15 tallest metal and non-metal statues in the world (Source: The Atlantic), “Lady Liberty” was dedicated in 1886 and quickly became an icon of freedom for the United States. With its metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel, the Statue of Liberty is a colossal copper statue designed in a neoclassical style by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. Sitting on Liberty Island in the New York Harbor within New York City, she has been a beacon of light and hope and seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. Regardless of political beliefs, last week’s election was historic and undeniably a celebration of America and our freedom to vote. According to the Washington Post, voter turnout is on pace to break century-old records, projected to surpass the 65.7% turnout in the 1908 election.

Magnificent Metal Monday

Amazon’s Spheres blend form and function

As featured in Building Design + Construction, Amazon’s “crown jewels” are being touted as an “architectural marvel.” Seven years in the making, The Spheres are located on Amazon’s $4 billion Seattle campus, and are a trio of conjoined glass domes complete with terraces, waterfall and river features, and a treehouse conference area.

Magnificent Metal Monday

Photo Credit: Ronstan Tensile Architecture

Green is the new black in building facades. Builders are turning to steel and metal cables and grids to create vertical gardens and green facades. According to ArchDaily‘s recent article, “Using the vertical plane to maintain plants in an urban setting is a coherent and common-sense solution, especially when there is little possibility of bringing green to the level of the people on the streets.”

Magnificent Metal Monday

In honor of President’s Day, MMM examines the monument that honors the first President of the United States. Upon its completion in 1884, the Washington Monument was the tallest building in the world. Designed by Robert Mills and eventually completed by Thomas Casey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it honors and memorializes George Washington at the center of the nation’s capital.

Magnificent Metal Monday

On the List of Coolest Offices …

… the Association for Iron & Steel (AIST), located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently completed a major renovation of their office and made the list of “cool offices” as rated by the Pittsburgh Business Times.  Given its steel constituents and being headquartered in “the Steel City,” it’s clearly no wonder that AIST used steel as its primary material for the renovation!  Pittsburgh has fondly been known as “the Steel City” for over a century, named for its more than 300 steel-related businesses.

Break out that Metal Pan … It’s National Grilled Cheese Day!

Admit it, who doesn’t love a gooey, oozing, yummy grilled cheese sandwich?  Listed as one of the top comfort foods in the United States, National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day is observed annually on April 12th.  Metal, of course, plays a key role – without the metal pan or skillet, there would be no Grilled Cheese Sandwich!

Swenson Shear Introduces Equipment Financing Options

Ceres, CA – Swenson Shear, a leading supplier of innovative tools for the metal roofing industry – including SnapTable all-in-one tools than can notch, shear and hem snap lock and standing seam panel profiles – announces that customers now have the ability to arrange financing for equipment purchases on the company’s website.

How to Prepare for your Metal Roofing Jobs

Our friends over at http://www.designandbuildwithmetal.com recently published an article that pertains to a lot of the metal roofers out there. Contributing to the article was Harry Schouten of Advanced Architectural Sheet Metal & Supply.

Book your Hotel for METALCON now

You heard us right, housing is OPEN! We’ve opened it earlier this year so that you can take advantage of the early bird pricing on the official hotels

Attend METALCON

Did you realize that registration is now open for METALCON? Well, today is your lucky day if you didn’t realize it. Most of you know that this is the world’s leading metal construction trade show and the most important people in the industry will be there, so to take advantage of the early bird discounts click on REGISTER NOW!

Magnificent Metal Mondays

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. I’m on vacation this week but there is no vacation from all of you. Today we travel to  

Free Education at METALCON

Well what can we say, we’ve done it again! With the help of our good friends over at MBCEA, (Metal Building Contractors & Erectors Association) there will be demonstrations

Magnificent Metal Mondays

Easily one of our readers favorite posts every week is Magnificent Metal Mondays. Today we travel down under to Australia to see the glorious Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is the world’s largest steel arch bridge with the top of the bridge standing 440 feet above Sydney Harbour. The bridge opened in March of 1932 and took approximately 8 years to build. A real interesting fact about the bridge is that the steel expands and/or contracts depending on whether it is hot or cold. This ultimately causes the bridge to not be completely stationary and can rise or fall up to 7.1 inch.

World Cup Trophy – Part 2

Following up from yesterday I felt like the post on the World Cup Trophy could have used a bit more so I decided to do a little research. I found this video on YouTube which discussed the Chemistry of the World Cup Trophy. Take a look at the video, I found it very interesting along with our host’s haircut.

Keymark – Exhibitor Feature

For today’s exhibitor feature we travel to Colorado to feature Keymark. Keymark a leader in global steel systems is the most innovative solution for cold-formed-steel-building design, engineering, and fabrication. You can view their profile by clicking here

Register for METALCON

Registration for METALCON is now open.  You can register by clicking here and I know you are saying didn’t he just talk about this Friday? Yes I did but I wanted to bring it up again obviously. With the early numbers we are seeing 

Magnificent Metal Mondays

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and celebrated a German World Cup Championship yesterday. Since Germany won I think it would be fun to do something a bit different today on Magnificent Metal Mondays. If you haven’t guessed it yet then we will be talking about 

Throwback Thursdays – #TBT

Here is a good Throwback Thursday moment that we dug up from the archives. We have a video of “The Best of METALCON 2011.” Check the video out and see if you can find yourself in the video. To see the video

Construction Careers – Why Not?

Here is another great video on construction careers most likely directed at students who may not want to go to college. Watch and forward it on, and remember we do work in a great industry!!

BMW Gets Smashed by a Metal Slab at a Job Site

Check this photo out, think BMW, yes the car, and a metal slab. You can read all about what happened by clicking here.

Metal Shredding and Recycling in Pilsen

Today’s first news worthy item I read about is happening in Pilsen, IL as we speak. It seems that residents in that community are protesting the building of a metal shredding and recycling facility because 

85 Days Until METALCON

Since we love new features here at METALCON, we are going to start a new one beginning tomorrow. We are going to profile an exhibitor each day until day 1 of METALCON. Who we profile and 

Types of Metal Buildings

Continuing on with another introductory piece of information for all of our new readers, I have found a fantastic

3D-Printed Steel Building Structures

About a month ago I posted something about 3D printing for the metal construction industry and it looks like these mad scientists are back at it again. Looks as if they are starting to print 

More Metal Theft

I know about a month or two ago I was on a big kick on metal theft and I stopped blogging about it. So since I was feeling bit nostalgic here is a video from a theft last month. I am amazed these people are still getting away with things like this.

 

Magnificent Metal Mondays

Back with another edition of Magnificent Metal Mondays after a long holiday weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed their extra day off and with that being said today we travel to the England and France as we explore

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Welding Professionals – How they started

So earlier this week I had posted a video about welder’ careers and then I ran into this video today. While some of this is not construction related you have to believe that these welding professionals can quickly adapt to any type of industry and job. Take a look at how they started and what they currently do by watching this video. Best line of the video is, “if you want to build something bad enough you have to learn to weld.”

#ThrowbackThursdays

Yes going to try to do another one today and in the spirit of July 4th let’s talk about our friend “ME.” Me was born back in 2013 and has grown up quickly to travel the world. Take a look at the photos through the years