NORTH COAST FABRICATORS

By Ian Hoover, Editor

Utilizes Their New Link-Belt HTC-86110 110-Ton Hydraulic Truck Crane to Help in the Erection of New CalPlant 1 Facility in Willows

North Coast Fabricators is a certified Woman-Owned Business operated by the husband-and-wife team, Paula and Tim Crowley. Established in 1976, the company started by servicing lumber producers and the pulp and paper industry in Northern California. Known for their steel erection and fabrication capabilities, North Coast Fabricators now offers a full array of crane and trucking services. They also provide hazardous material hauling, large equipment services, nuclear support services, and full construction services that focus on metal building erection. North Coast Fabricators has completed thousands of projects since its inception in 1976, including assisting PG&E in the decommissioning of the Humboldt Bay Nuclear facility in 2018.

Below: Link-Belt HTC-86110, 110-ton hydraulic truck crane unloading press plates at the CalPlant 1 facility in Willows.

North Coast Fabricators recently completed an exciting project in Willows, CA, in December 2020. It was a job for CalPlant 1, the world’s first commercial-scale producer of rice straw-based medium-density fiberboard (MDF), annually supplying approximately 140 million square feet of no-added formaldehyde MDF to the building products industry. Rice straw is an agricultural waste product of the annual harvest, and all furnish for the plant is procured from Sacramento Valley rice growers within a 25-mile radius of the plant site in Willows. In layman’s terms, the waste bi-product from rice is broken down and pressed to make medium-dense particleboard.

Matt Morrison is the senior project manager for North Coast Fabricators. He oversaw all of his company’s construction services delivered to CalPlant 1 for their new facility in Willows, constructed from mid-2018 to December 2020. “We were invited on-site to initially assist Siempelkamp (manufacturer of the plant equipment) in the unloading of the plates and containers delivered to the jobsite from Europe. This included the rice press and most all of the machinery for the entire new plant operation,” says Morrison. “We were then contracted to erect three buildings on-site. The largest structure was a 10,000 square foot, 70-foot-tall steel building, while the other two were smaller and used to support the larger manufacturing facility.” Morrison says that North Coast Fabricators used their cranes to place heavy structural steel beams and other building materials over the newly placed manufacturing equipment. “There was an added challenge for our crane operators as they hoisted heavy equipment and steel over expensive equipment sections that had already been put in place,” continues Morrison.

Above & Below: Link-Belt HTC-86110 placing machinery and equipment at CalPlant 1 facility in Willows.

“In one instance, our crane operators lifted a 125,000-pound section of the prepress on to the top of another section and then repeated that process for three more sections of the prepress.”

Morrison points out that some of the picks on-site were not quite as delicate as others but that they were all done with an emphasis on safety first. “We performed hundreds of picks on this job site to include everything from 4-inch-thick flat plates to 100-foot rafters. We had around 15 ironworkers at any given time working on the erection of the three buildings and 10 pipefitters working at the heating oil building. This was one of the more diversified, rewarding, and challenging projects for our company and crews, and we had fun getting it done.”

North Coast Fabricators maintains an entire fleet of trucks and heavy machinery that includes cranes from 10-ton to 110-ton capacity. Two of these units are Link-Belt cranes purchased from Nixon-Equipment Co. “We recently purchased a brand-new Link-Belt HTC-86110, 110-ton hydraulic truck crane from the wonderful people at Nixon-Egli Equipment Co.,” says Morrison. “This is our second Link-Belt crane from Nixon-Egli, as we bought a 2000 RTC-8090, 90-ton rough terrain unit from them in 2019 for its maneuverability in tight places and those long-term rental jobs.” Morrison says that they go with Link-Belt for reliability and performance. “We purchased the Link-Belt 110-ton because it has the best load chart in the industry for this specific weight class. The HTC-86110 is our taxi crane, bouncing from one job to another and is currently in Redding working on a sawmill operation,” continues Morrison. “Link-Belt manufacturers amazing cranes, and when you combine that fact with Nixon-Egli’s famous customer service and support, you just can’t go wrong.”

Link-Belt HTC-86110 placing 125,000-pound section of prepress on top of another section.

Morrison has been working with Bruce Brownie from Nixon-Egli Equipment Co. since their first introduction in Las Vegas at Con Expo in 2014. “Bruce is a straight shooter who will always tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. He knows the functional details of every crane and what they will and won’t do for you. We sit down, and he explains what he thinks is best for me and our operation, not just what is best for him and his company. I like working with Bruce and have always appreciated his wealth of knowledge and honesty. We have a backlog of some significantly large jobs on the books, and we are going to need additional cranes in our fleet to handle the workload. When the time comes, we will turn to Nixon-Egli to fill that need.”

According to Morrison, 2021 is already shaping up to be an excellent year for North Coast Fabricators. The company is headquartered in Arcata, and they opened a new branch facility in Redding in 2018 to better serve all of Humboldt, Del Norte and Shasta Counties. North Coast Fabricators is a Union operated company that works throughout California and Southern Oregon. For more information or to schedule their services, please visit them at northcoastfabricators.com or call (707) 822-4629. Cc