Vol. XXIII, No. 1 (Winter, 2000)

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HAVE IT YOUR WAY

For more than 50 years, Spillman Company has been serving the needs of its customers in the precast concrete industry. Today, we offer the most complete and diverse line of custom steel forms for underground and utility precast concrete producers. We regularly manufacture forms with cores which are tapered, collapsing, and now with the patented hydraulic "Strickland" corners. Each and every form is detailed using the appropriate structural steel elements to provide for many years of continuous service.

Typically, our tapered core forms are fabricated from ¼" hot rolled steel plate reinforced with vertical stiffening members of either structural angle or channel, which has been mounted to the core in a vertical position. These stiffeners are connected to the form base frame and similar stiffeners in the core top. Our collapsing core forms are fabricated from ¼" steel which has been reinforced with vertical angle stiffeners with a total of eight hinges. Each hinge is fabricated from 1" diameter pipe segments which have been connected to adjacent core segments. We at Spillman use 5/8" brass hex bar as our common hinge pins. Collapsing core forms have a heavy duty "Christmas tree" which is manufactured from heavy duty pipe and a series of connecting arms fitted with adjusting hardware. The overwhelming majority of our collapsing core forms have beveled 3/8" plate tops; however, some of our customers prefer ½" plate covers.

The newest style of underground and utility vault form type that is available exclusively from Spillman is the Strickland Industries hydraulic corner form. This core uses a patented machined corner, with a durability to maintain a precision fit. Each Strickland core also includes an automatic lubrication system.

To meet the wide range of customer requirements, Spillman's underground and utility vault forms can be fitted with a wide variety of jacket types - bolt-on, "fly-away", hinged, and roll-away. The least complex and oldest style of jacket is the bolt-on type. These jackets commonly use ½" coil hardware to connect the jacket's pieces to the base frame and often also have simple bolted corner connections as well. The "fly-away" jacket is a refinement of the bolt-on type that allows the precaster to remove the casting and the jackets as a single assembly during the stripping process. Normally, "fly-away" jackets are manufactured in two L-shaped pieces with turning trunnions and bolted corners to connect the sections together and to the base frame. Today, the most common jacket type is hinged jackets. This jacket type has become the most popular because it not only requires less space, but it also requires significantly less labor. These jackets are fabricated with spring assemblies to allow for a single employee to strip and set each jacket. These jackets are normally fabricated with form clamps at the corners for quick connections. A jacket style that is now growing in popularity is the roll-away. This style is a variation on the fly-away style which provides for unlimited access to both the core and jackets during stripping, cleaning, and set up.

We are able to include additional details on underground and utility vault forms such as four way pallets, floating pallets, gasketed pallets, knockout and blockout pans, catwalks and ladders, vibration details, pulling iron details, and access openings. With our diverse experience, we at Spillman look forward to having the opportunity to work with you in the very near future. To receive a prompt quotation, please feel free to contact us toll-free at 800/44FORMS, or 614/444-1231, or via e-mail at www.spillmanform.com.

 

In the area of personnel changes, Curt Porr will now assume the duties of Research and Development Manager as well as Regional Manager. With his new duties, Curt will be better able to focus his attention and skills on meeting both the short and long term requirements for custom steel formwork. As a regional manager, Curt will supplement our extensive North American sales efforts with a focus on precast and prestressed customers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Kentucky. Curt is a registered professional engineer in Ohio, and has been a valued Spillman associate since 1985.

Joining Spillman as Quality Control Manager is Greg Olbrantz. Greg will be responsible for developing and executing a complete quality process that will meet the needs of Spillman's internal and external customers. He will be working with associates, vendors, and external customers to establish the required performance standards and the processes and procedures needed to achieve them. Greg has a Bachelor of Science with a major in Operations Management from The Ohio State University. His work experience includes production and quality assignments with both the glass and steel industries. Greg, his wife, Tana, and their two children have recently relocated to the Columbus area.

 

Curt Porr (left) - Greg Olbrantz (right)

In offering an electronic catalog, we are giving you, our customers, 24/7 access to all our standard forms, plastic rebar and mesh supports and plastic protection devices, internal and external air and electric vibrators, and our EZY-STRYP® magnetic clamping system. The catalog includes quantity price breaks where applicable as well as detailed specifications on our products in both English and metric dimensions. The catalog also provides our users with detailed electronic order histories.

As you browse, please download our web page and catalog and tell us what you think. We look forward to hearing from you at www.spillmanform.com so that we can improve this catalog for your benefit.

For many, many years, Spillman has offered a variety of plastic rebar and mesh chairs for use within the precast and prestressed concrete products industry. Today, we at Spillman offer one of the most complete lines of one and two dimensional supports and chairs for rebar, wire, and wire mesh. Products included in our lines have covers from ½" to 6" and are capable of supporting reinforcing steels from the smallest wires through #18 bars. In addition to our Plaswheels®, Plasclips®, Plaschairs®, Meshchairs, and Panel Pads, we have recently added an all-plastic slab bolster to our Plasclip® product line, which is available in covers from ½" through 3".

For complete details on all our plastic products, please feel free to contact us toll-free at 800/44FORMS or via fax at 614/444-1231. As indicated in the adjacent article, you can view our entire plastic product line online at www.spillmanform.com.