Throwback Thursday - Remix

 This week's Throwback Thursday is a remix. We have updated photos to go with an video we posted in 2015.

The Henry David Thoreau Footbridge in Washington, CT is a really unique pedestrian bridge. In order to span the 134' over the Shepaug River it is a combination of a cable stayed and suspension bridge. The bridge deck is made of 8" x 8" horizontally curved glulam beams. We posted a video of us curving the segments of the bridge, which you can watch right here! 

A friend of Unalam was hiking in the Hidden Valley Preserve and sent us some current photos. One important design consideration of the bridge was to make it accessible to all visitors of the preserve.

The railing of the bridge is inscribe with quotes from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, offering visitors a reminder of the importance of engaging with nature.

Do you have any current photos of Unalam projects you'd like to share? Send them to: info@unalam.com!

Watch Us In Action!

Unfortunately, not everyone can come take a tour of our plant. But, you can check out these videos from Wood Components Manufacturers Association and the American Wood Council.

For WCMA we did a "tour" through the plant, an interview with our president, Craig Van Cott, and a Q&A session with Craig and our Continuing Ed Coordinator, Liz Connor. You can watch the video here: WCMA Unalam Tour.

The American Wood Council provides continuing education presentations on all kinds of wood products. This March, Liz did a panel discussion and presentation on the structural qualities of the material and the manufacturing process. While I don't think you can get continuing ed credits anymore you can still watch the presentation here: AWC Glulam Panel Discussion.

Hopefully we'll be back to giving tour and continuing education presentation in person soon! 

A Record Still Stands

In 1998 we manufactured what we know to be the world's longest continuous glulam beams at 173'! These beams were used in the restoration of the Downsville, NY covered bridge, originally built in 1854 and still in use today. We published a special brochure detailing the journey of those beams.

Delivering such long beams was no easy feat. Lucky for us, Downsville is only 30 miles from our manufacturing facility in Sidney, NY. A drive that normally takes 40 minutes took just over 6 hours.

Since the beams are so long, they were glued and shipped in billets twice the finished depth. All (3) billets were strapped together into a block to minimize bounce and twist during shipping. Once on site, we ripped the 28" deep billets in half length wise, creating the (6) final 13¾" deep beams. 

As far as well can tell no one has yet to manufacture and ship anything longer in glulam. 

Want to beat the record? Give us a call or email at: 607-369-9341 or info@unalam.com.

TBT: Over 100 Years of Customer Satisfaction

At Unalam, when looking for something, you often stumble upon a piece of our long history. Today we found a letter of customer satisfaction from 1915! 

The letter says, "We thought you would be interested in a picture of one of your 20x40 white pine silos which we sold to Mr. W.S. Nobel of this city [Pittsfield, MA] and with which he was very much pleased."

As you can see in the photo below he is utterly thrilled with his silo!

Contact us and see what we can do to make you just as pleased as Mr. Noble at: info@unalam.com or 607-369-9341

Not a Pedestrian Pedestrian Bridge

We have done many posts about our ability to ship aspects of projects fully assembled to the site. Our latest project exemplifies the lengths we can go to in order to make installation as simple as possible. 

We shipped a fully assembled 70' pedestrian bridge to John T O'Neill Green Meadows Park in Stony Creek, NY yesterday for its installation. 

This bridge is so long that fabricating the hand rails required us to go a little out of order.

Since the rails have a slight radius, are so long (69' 5"), and only 3" x 4-1/8" in section, it is more accurate to cut them plumb after assembly. Below you can see how spaghetti like a beam can become with such a small section over such a length. 

Once in place we can accurately finish the ends!