Marine Fabricator January/February 2023 - 17

" I have jigs, drill presses and various abstract
creations set up to do one little piece
of our procedures, " explains Johnstone. " I
have somewhere between $50,000 and
$100,000 of equipment that has taken the
length of my career to acquire. "
Johnstone fabricates miscellaneous
aluminum tops and stainless steel " hoop
backs " in various shapes and sizes.
He also designs and manufactures the
" Ridged Door " for houseboats, an aluminum
frame wrapped in clear vinyl and
Sunbrella®
to mimic the feel and use of a
regular door. He also builds sport tops,
T-tops and other miscellaneous frame
systems during his " slow season. "
Johnstone says that when he fi rst
started selling rigid doors 25 years ago,
he was charging $1,000 apiece, " and
we were selling them like crazy. " Today,
he's still charging the same amount, although
his process has become streamlined
and effi cient.
" That's helped me keep the market
on it, because no one around here can
copy the door for that price when you're
only building one or two of them, " he
says. " I build so many of them, and now
with all my equipment, I can build that
door in a couple of hours, where before
it was taking me two days. "
Technology pros and cons
Metal fabricators also have different approaches
to the technology they use in
their shops.
" We are capturing specifi c projects
with Prodim or lasers depending on the
environment, designing in CAD where
many people aren't utilizing a programable
bender to ensure accurate and repeatable
bends, " says Johnstone. " Our
bender is not state of the art, but around
our shop we haven't heard of any others
investing in this specialized equipment. "
Gierula says he has been using CAD
for 20-plus years and currently uses Rhino.
" When I am working with Newkirk,
we want to be able to give people things
that look better, with more curves, " he
explains. " I'm good with CAD; it really
speeds things up and it allows us to play
with looks and ideas. If you're laying out
things manually in the shop, at full size, it's
obviously diffi cult and time-consuming. "
But there's no computerization in
Gierula's shop other than CAD and
laser cutting, he says. " The basis of the
technology in fabrication is still from
1980, maybe 1990. As far as bending
goes, we're still using the same machines
that were built back in the 1970s,
and they're still going strong.
" Technology exists and it makes duplicating
things easier, " he says. " But
with the custom nature of my work, and
all the one-offs I do, duplication really
makes no difference to me. "
Metal work is both art and skill
" There's a little bit of art on the metal side
of things, " says Gierula. " It's not as cut
and dried as laying it out on the computer
and printing it out. There's a lot of fi tting
and fi ddling and grinding. Computerizing
would not give me a leg up. "
Materials have not changed much either,
says Gierula, as long as he uses U.S.made
stainless and not offshore material
" that is half the quality or less. "
" I've been dealing with the same U.S.
tubing company for 30 years, and I have
pieces of material that have been sitting in
the storeroom for 10 years-it'll bend and
be the same quality as a piece I get today.
Especially with tubing, the exact diameter,
the temper, how it bends and the fi nish, is
all very important. When you start messing
with that, it's hard to do the job. "
Jeff Moravec is a freelance writer based in
Brooklyn Park, Minn.
" I have
somewhere
between $50,000
and $100,000
of equipment
that has taken
the length of my
career to acquire. "
-Daymon Johnstone,
Lakeside Marine Canvas
For more information, visit:
marinefabricatormag.com
Search " metal fabrication "
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Marine Fabricator January/February 2023

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