Metal meets mettle
Hard work, custom work company's trademarks
EMILY - Tucked away on the wooded outskirts of Emily is a company started by a man with a mind for manipulating metal.
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Quality Fabricating of Emily Inc. was born with owner Alex Sutton. After high school and vocational school, the Crosby native found he had a knack for machine shop work.
Starting his own business was something Sutton said sort of happened by accident, but was fueled by his abilities in metal working. He built a reputation working in the fabricating industry and found people coming to him with side projects that filled his nights and weekends. Wood-burning fireplaces and wood boilers were common early projects.
Jeremy Whipple, Crosby, paused inside one of the massive dehydrators Quality Fabricating of Emily Inc. is constructing. The end user expects to dehydrate beef - about 800 pounds per day - for use in high-quality dog food.
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Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
After a lay-off and with a pending marriage, Sutton decided to go out on his own. He built little fireplaces for contractors. When Freeze Dry in Nisswa sought out his work, Quality Fabricating's bread and butter product became building dehydrators. Their uses went from taxidermy to flowers to big commercial drying. End uses include drying elk antlers.
The partnership between Freeze Dry and Quality Fabricating has been ongoing since the early 1980s.
"It's been fabulous," said Todd Saatzer, one of the Freeze Dry owners. "They do just perfect work."
Freeze Dry ships its dehydrators all over the world, including Europe and Asia. Saatzer said the welds have to meet a stringent vacuum standard. "They have that figured out. The fit and finish is the tops in the industry standard."
Sutton said his business is now making fewer of the dehydrators, but the ones it is making are getting bigger. A recent order will go to a customer in Milwaukee. The massive units, with final systems costing about $400,000, will be used to dehydrate beef for high-quality dog food to the tune of 800 pounds of meat per day.
Haylen Price, Quality Fabricating of Emily Inc., welded on a project in the machine shop.
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Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
Custom work is the company's lifeblood.
"They have a design," Sutton said of clients. "It's our job to figure out how to form it."
The machine shop has grown to include three employees and an office manager. Sutton still works on the floor, manages the business and acts as its sales force. But much of the work comes to him as former customers return with additional projects.
"You try to keep the customers you work for addicted to you," Sutton said.
Kevin Kronbeck, Wausau Paper project engineer, began working with Quality Fabricating in 1985 when the paper company was owned by Potlatch. Kronbeck said Sutton specializes in stainless steel work and is able to build things quickly.
"He's pretty amazing," Kronbeck said. "I've actually been able to describe something on the phone to him without a drawing and it comes out right. All of his guys up there have always been so well experienced you know you are going to get something you are happy with."
"It's been fabulous. They do just perfect work."
Todd Saatzer
One of the Freeze Dry owners, on the partnership between Freeze Dry and Quality Fabricating.
WE SPOTTED: » Metal meets mettle
A recent challenge came from Wausau Paper as the company sought a metal tool to increase its own paper manufacturing efficiency. The project created a "crumb catcher" where a stainless steel bar slides along giant paper rolls. The equipment acts like a vacuum catching loose pieces during the papermaking process.
"Actually they were very hard to make," Sutton said. "We've been working on them for about two weeks."
Sutton's most complex project was a 65-foot-long air-scrubber designed to clean air as it leaves power companies, including those burning coal. The unit worked by removing sulfur dioxides, nitric oxides and mercury from coal, natural gas, diesel or other fuels being used to generate electricity. The unit, designed to operate at 500 degrees, was built for an entrepreneurial company based in Minneapolis. About 10 people worked on the project at Quality Fabricating along with additional contractors.
"It was fun because we didn't have a budget," Sutton said of the project.
Set on a tractor-trailer, the unit could be transported to various plants and tested. It took the crews nearly 10 weeks to build. One of the tests to check the technology's ability to clean the air was done on a steam boiler at the Potlatch plant in Brainerd. Sutton said the technology was taking 100 percent of pollutants out of the air, but wasn't put into use after the Bush administration relaxed regulations on power plants.
Quality Fabricating of Emily Inc. was born with owner Alex Sutton. After high school and vocational school, the Crosby native found he had a knack for machine shop work.
» Purchase reprints of thias photo.
Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
Quality Fabricating clients include iLevel by Weyerhaeuser in Deerwood. Work for the building industry has taken a hit in the construction downturn. Other jobs include making conveying equipment. The company also makes wind cone poles and windsock frames for Hali-Brite Inc. in Crosby.
The variety of projects and fast-paced work keeps it interesting, Sutton said.
"For a small shop we are really well-equipped and you have to be to put out the different things we make," Sutton said. He expects future business growth may come from the ethanol and biodiesel fuels industries.
Armed with a mischievous smile that only hints at an expansive sense of humor, Sutton was sharing cookies from a Valentine's Day gift bag from his wife last week. The father of five said his company's size allows for a healthy balance between work and home, leaving time for much-loved outdoor excursions and fishing trips to Canada for giant northerns.
RENEE RICHARDSON can be reached at renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5852.