A New Cyclone, Decades in the Making Some jobs are about more than the steel.
A recent dust-collection project for a regional pallet manufacturer looked routine on paper – fabricate and install a new cyclone dust collector – but for the AM Metal crew it came with a twist: we were replacing a collector we had built the first time around.
The cyclone in the photo is the heart of the plant’s dust-collection system. Perched on a rooftop steel platform, it pulls sawdust and wood chips straight off the shop floor below.
Here’s how it works:
The new unit went in cleanly. Fabrication was dialed in at the shop, the installation went smoothly, and the finished collector sits square and tight on its platform. It is the kind of dust-collection work AM Metal handles all the time – and that reliability is the point. When a plant’s air quality and housekeeping depend on a collector running day in and day out, “routine” is exactly what you want.
What made this one different is the steel underneath it. AM Metal set that rooftop platform 25 to 30 years ago and built the original cyclone that sat on it not long after. One of the people who helped make that first collector was Ted Prettyleaf – back then, a young tradesman coming up through the shop. Decades later, Ted is the one who walked back in to replace his own handiwork.
That kind of longevity runs through the company. Ted’s career in the trade goes back to 1976, when the shop operated as Danneker Sheet Metal – the business that became AM Metal in 1997. A half-century of fabrication means we don’t just build equipment; we are still here to service and replace it decades on. For this pallet manufacturer, that meant a new cyclone built to run every bit as long as the last one — and a crew that had, quite literally, been there before.
It’s kind of weird,
He said, “walking in and replacing something you made 25 years ago.”
