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