Cunningham Sheet Metal Stays on the Cutting Edge

By Matthew St. Amand Photo by Trevor Booth

GTA,” Justin says. “This is not something you just buy off the shelf. It’s a significant investment that will increase efficiency and produce higher quality work.”

The two most common types of welding in Cunningham’s trade are Tig and Mig. Tig is very refined, and the welder has a lot of control, but it’s time-consuming. Mig requires less skill and is much more user friendly. It’s fast, but it’s less refined and used more in production-type welding.

“This laser welder combines the speed of Mig welding with the accuracy of Tig welding,” Justin explains. “It means more training for us because this is a Class Four laser, the most dangerous type of laser you can have. Manufacturer’s standards and Ministry guidelines require stringent safety measures for this machine. Most notably, it requires its own booth/lab, blocked off from the rest of the shop. It has special laser safe glass on all its windows. The door has an interlock that instantly kills power to the welder if it’s opened.”

Why bring in a laser welder that is expensive and requires extra training?

“This will create a better process inhouse for us,” Justin says. “It will cut our welding and cleaning time in half. It will also allow us to weld thinner material with less distortion. We anticipate this could solve some of the problems that traditional welding produces, and the industry has just become accustomed to.”

Cunningham was purchased in 2012 by Justin’s partners, Carlo Cerroni and Rino Tedesco. In 2015, they moved from their historic Walkerville location to a more modern, spacious 10,000-squarefoot facility at 2060 Blackacre Drive in Oldcastle.

They serve customers in multiple sectors: commercial/industrial, pharmaceutical, and healthcare. Past projects include copper eavestroughs and downspouts at the legendary Low-Martin House in Walkerville, machine guarding for Hiram Walker and stainless-steel signage and statues for the University of Windsor. They also did the HVAC sheet metal for the Walkerville Collegiate Institute renovation.

Every industry is cyclical, but Cunningham is sufficiently diversified to weather the slow periods. And they’re always adapting to the changing economy.

“We fabricate and install commercial and industrial duct work,” Justin says. “That’s our trade. That’s what our guys are trained for.”

To learn more about the work going on at Cunningham Sheet Metal, visit them online at cunninghamsheetmetal.com. W.E.

Our people go through four years of mandatory night school where we train them for what they’re going to learn at trade school, and then they go to St. Clair College, for instance, to learn their trade.”