A Guided Tour of Unadilla Laminated Products (Part 2)

This week, we focus on the sales and design aspects of our operations.

Taking Customers from Concepts to Completion

Estimating
When you call into Una-Lam with a pricing request, one of our knowledgeable estimators will take your information and price the job. Once you have accepted our quote, the job either goes directly to our manufacturing facility or it goes to our engineering and drafting department, depending on the complexity.

Engineering/Drafting
Una-Lam employs two licensed professional engineers and two drafters who have expertise in wood products design. If your project requires engineering analysis or shop drawings, this department will do the design work and send it to you for approval before it goes into production.

Template
After the design is finished and approved, shop drawings are sent to our Sidney plant where they are turned into full-scale mock-ups in our template loft. These templates accompany your project through the plant and are used in the glue room to set our gluing forms and in the finishing department to make final cuts and attach hardware in the right places. This photo shows how we made the templates for the Groton Street Bridge trusses.

A Guided Tour of Unadilla Laminated Products (Part 1)

Here at Una-Lam, we love giving tours and telling people about our long company history. But, we know that not everyone can make it to our plant, so we've put together some photos and descriptions to share with everyone, near and far. The following is the first in an eight part series of stories about Una-Lam that we will post over the coming weeks. Enjoy!

In the Beginning: About Unadilla Laminated Products (Una-Lam) and the Unadilla Silo Company, Inc.

In 1892, the Van Cott family began selling lumber in Unadilla, NY. In 1906, we made the first Unadilla silo, beginning a product line that would serve farmers until the 80s. We incorporated as the Unadilla Silo Company, Inc. in 1909, and we're excited to celebrate a century of incorporation this year.

To further our commitment to farmers, the Unadilla Silo Company experimented with glue laminated barn rafters in 1928. By 1963, this business had picked up steam and we expanded our laminated products division into a new facility in nearby Sidney, NY where we continue production today.

For more than a century, Una-Lam has built its reputation on a constant commitment to quality and an eye on the future of building. Today’s leaders at Una-Lam continue to embody the spirit of tradition meeting innovation.

Now, with members of the sixth generation of the Van Cott family working here, we continue the tradition of wood products manufacturing.

Unique Glulam Residence Under Construction

Una-Lam often provides material for unique projects. This residence, now under construction, is no difference. In this case, we were not only the material supplier, our in-house professional engineer provided the design expertise for our beams. This photo shows the house framing from the north end, and shows six of the ten arches that will form the structural framing for the house. Each frame is 40' out to out, with a curved upper "beam" section with a kerfed shear splice to the column sections. All members have a constant 6.5" x 24" cross section and the inside radius is 5'-0". To get the tight 5' radius, we had to use even thinner material than usual. 1" nominal (0.667") plies can only be bent to 7' radius. These are true 0.5" plies.

All of the columns have fixed moment connection bases, which provide the building's lateral resistance in both directions. When complete, most of the facade will be glass with no shear walls. You can see the base connection on the nearest frame in the photo. For the other frames, the columns and base connections extend below the floor level for concealment. Also, for cosmetic reasons we worked to line up the glue lines at the splice.

Glulam Student Center Rises in Connecticut

Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT recently began constructing its new glulam student center using Una-Lam supplied material. This construction photo shows the central framing bay of the building from the concrete core to the ring of glulam columns.
All of the glulam members and connections are fire rated, meaning that the connections have the required 1.5" glulam protection over all steel parts. The top of each connection is protected by 3" decking, and the connections are all narrower than the members to protect the sides. Bolt holes will be plugged using custom fabricated glulam plugs. And, underneath the members, bottom plugs cover the steel seats.

In the photo below you can just barely make out the rectangular outlines of some of the bottom plugs and see one beam, at the top of the photo, where the plug has not yet been installed.

Check back often for regular updates on the progress of the project.

Glulam Spiral Staircase Stringers

Occasionally we are asked to make some complicated glulam shapes for projects, from S-curves to complete circles and everywhere in between. In those cases, we still glue up the material on our forms close to the floor. For this particular project, we needed to extend our forms vertically so we could make helical shaped stringers for a spiral staircase. This is just another example of our unique capabilities.

Glulam Pre-Assembly Nearly Done on Groton St. Bridge

Now that we have added the roof trusses to the top of the Groton St. Bridge it won't be long before we have to disassemble it and ship everything to Pepperell, MA for final installation.

These photos show some of the more recent progress. The first shows the roof truss being carefully installed on top of the bridge side trusses. The second and third photos show the bridge with all roof trusses installed.

Una-Lam Provides Glulam for SAP Leed Platinum Certified Headquarters

Recently Una-Lam provided Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified glulam for global business software provider SAP's new US headquarters in Newton Square, PA. View an article, here that describes the building and SAP's environmental philosophy and includes photos of the glulam provided by Una-Lam.