RAT - Investing In Ceramics: Danser Expands Facilities
When informed of Danser's plans to build the new vacuum-forming facility, Unifrax Corp., Niagara Falls, N.Y., a supplier of bulk ceramic fiber, invited the company to visit its board vacuum-forming plant in New Carlisle, Ind. For the manufacturing of its line of custom vacuum-formed boards, shapes and sleeves, Danser adapted information provided by Unifrax engineering in the areas of vacuum-forming, material handling, the drying process and dust collection safety in the finishing process.
Construction was scheduled to begin in the fall of 1998, but was delayed by the discovery of an abandoned turn-of-the-century oil well on the plant site. Excavation and foundation work commenced after the well had been capped under the supervision of the West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection. The manufacturing facility was designed and built entirely by Danser, who also fabricated most of the operation's numerous large steel vacuum, mixing and draw tanks.
About the Company
Incorporated in 1971 and in business as a sheet metal fabricator since the 1930s, Danser owns the patent on VacuductR, steel-jacketed, vacuum-formed ceramic fiber ductwork and fittings for temperature applications as high as 2800°F continuous. Consisting of a low-density ceramic fiber sleeve (about 17 lbs./cu. ft.) cured inside an outer steel skin, VacuductR is about 20% the weight of castable insulation and provides instant start-up and shutdown to virtually eliminate thermal shock.Danser makes its own dies and performs all manufacturing and production at its 25-acre Parkersburg, W.Va., plant site. The company manufactures a diverse line of fabricated sheet metal products for a large variety of industrial applications, with an emphasis in the industrial furnace field. Examples include kilns, combustion chambers, incinerators, furnaces, ovens, dryers, flue exhausts and stacks, heat recovery and recirculation systems, and related equipment such as rolled-and-welded and spiral ductwork.
In addition to industrial heating components, Danser manufacturers, from customers' drawings, systems for fuel conservation, dust collection and air pollution control, as well as paint spray booths, water-bath tanks, dust collectors, scrubbers and exhaust plenums for the finishing industry. The company is equipped for computerized plasma cutting of aluminum; stainless, galvanized and aluminized steel; and Inconell, Hastelloy and Monel on a 6 x 20 ft cutting table. Capable of both continuous seam and spot welding, Danser has state-of-the-art shearing, bending and rolling equipment, with multiple punching systems, and the capability for angle rolling, as well as a Gorelock machine to manufacture non-welded elbows.
Danser manufactures spiral round duct, from 3 to 72 in. in diameter, in 22- to 16-gauge carbon, stainless, galvanized and aluminized steel, as well as aluminum, on its spiral machine. The company specializes in cut-to-length sections-as long as can be commercially hauled-and next day turnaround on all spiral pipe.
Over the past half-century, Danser's experienced professional crews have installed fabricated heat-control and exhaust systems throughout the United States and Canada and recently completed a job in South Africa. A third of the company's 85 employees are on a job site somewhere in the world at any given time. Danser has exported fabricated and vacuum-formed industrial heating products to Canada, China, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Trinidad.