SAISC PROFILE
SPENCER PAYS A VISIT TO
UITENHAGE SUPER STEEL
By Spencer Erling, Education Director, SAISC
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Looking pretty with a full order book, the( economic) crash of 2008 quickly changed that, the orders were all cancelled leaving them starting the year 2009 with no work and a well-trained team with nothing to do. It was Warren Buffett who preached when it comes to investing, go against the flow, if the masses are in equities, get out. Ginkel must definitely have come from the same mind set.
I had only spoken to Ginkel once. Ginkel had called up the SAISC for some technical advice on submerged arc welding of plate girders and he was put through to me. He explained to me that he had bought the machine from Dave Scott when Scott steel closed its fabrication shop.
That of course got my mind going, back to my Speedy Welders days, when lots of people asked the same question, what on earth would a fabricator in Uitenhage want a submerged arc welding machine for?
So in October 2015 when visiting Port Elizabeth to do a lecture for 3rd year architect students at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University( NMMU), on multistorey steel construction using steel framing, I allowed for an extra day during the visit to the area and made my way out to visit Uitenhage Super Steel( USS) and meet Ginkel and some of his team.
For those of you who have entertained me during a visit to your works, you will surely remember that for me, a visit to a noisy workshop is music to my ears. My visit to USS was that and plenty more!
I asked Ginkel about his name and he explained to me that it came from van Ginkel, a name that his family had by tradition had passed down the generations to the first born son of the next generation.
The next obvious question was how did the business start? Ginkel explained that his father had an education and experience in agriculture, so quite naturally the business started manufacturing farming implements, which rapidly grew into farm sheds, the‘ portal frame market’, which industry they still serve to this day.
Ginkel joined the business without any formal education in structural steel. They operated out of a 600m ² covered area without the luxury of overhead travelling cranes, but with a WMW metal working machine. The original shop can still be seen.
About 15 years ago, one of their biggest jobs, which put them on the structural steel fabricating map was a 5 000m ² citrus packing house. So an extension was done with a fairly modest sized crane with a low clear height.
The business was growing steadily during the 2006 / 7 boom years leading up to the
6 Steel Construction Vol. 40 No. 1 2016