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The mechanic who built the first portable standing seam in the U.S. reviewed his journey

Ewald Stellrecht, the owner of ESE Machines, is recognized for creating the first portable roll forming machine dedicated to the double-lock vertical seam roofing industry in the United States. Now in his 70s, he is still active in this industry, and is still amused by the fact that his lack of understanding of metal roofing is the catalyst for him to create a machine that will revolutionize it.
Stellrecht received mechanical manufacturing training in Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1965, and eventually opened his own “jobbing” shop in Exton, a western suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, he and one or two employees designed and built machines to order. “We make equipment for companies that say,’Can you build this?’? I did it,” he recalled in a recent interview with Rollforming magazine.
Ewald Stellrecht built America’s first portable panel roll forming machine for LM Martin. This is the original version of the later model, but the time for this idea has arrived.
One of his machines is used to make foam-coated fabrics for sports boots. In 1976, while working on site, he talked with LM Martin, a roofing contractor from nearby Ephrata. “He saw the machine I built for that factory, and he asked me to build a machine for him to form panels. This is how I started,” Stellrecht said.
Stellrecht knows nothing about metal roofs, but building such a machine is simple enough.
“I didn’t study the entire content of roll forming,” he said. “I just thought, I could solve this problem myself. I came up with a different idea, which is to pull the metal without looking at the existing machine; I didn’t pay attention to how it was done normally.”
LM Martin is very satisfied with his new portable computer. “He came back, he said it really changed the industry, and he explained all the labor savings,” Stellrecht said.
In the late 1970s, several companies used large fixed machines to provide roll-formed metal panels, which were delivered in uniform-sized packaging bundles. For standard double lock standing seams, metal roofers usually brake on site to form 8 or 10 foot sections, and then interlock with hand tools. This is a time-consuming and laborious process.
“Roll forming eliminates the labor required to join parts together. This is a huge savings,” Stellrecht said.
Martin told Stellrecht that his machine was worth the money. He encouraged him to establish partnerships with him to build more. Stellrecht shrugged. “I didn’t think too much,” he said. “I’m just trying to meet this customer’s request. After I built that machine, I thought I was finished.”
Stellrecht can’t believe that there is nothing like it in the United States. “We have already landed on the moon seven years ago, why the United States does not have such a simple machine,” is his logic.
But he eventually began to study the history of roll forming. He discovered that portable devices are already in use in Europe. Since Art Knudson manufactured the first one in his garage in Cedar Falls, Iowa in 1957 and began selling it as a Watertite gutter in 1961, there have been A portable gutter machine. However, there is no portable device for the vertical seam market.
Finally believed that there might be a market for such a machine, he used his spare time to build a second one, and then advertised in trade publications to see if anyone was interested.
“As soon as the magazine came out, I got a call,” he said. “Someone deposits money for me.”
Fearing that a large company might design a similar machine and enter the market before him, he quickly summoned some business partners, and they established Roll Form in 1978. They started production to fill his order at Exton’s small store. Stellrecht began traveling around New England, dragging one of the new machines and selling it to roofers on the spot.
About a year later, Ball Metal, a part of Ball Mason Jar, appeared in this store. Their popular cans have zinc lids, and the company is involved in multiple metal manufacturing areas in the zinc market. They hope to be the sole distributor of the products Stellrecht has created for the zinc roofing market. “So we decided that it was a good connection for us to let them sell the machine,” he said.
It was successful for a while, but the metal roof was not Bauer’s strong point, and the company terminated its agreement with Roll Form. Around the same time, Stellrecht also left the restrictions of the partnership and returned to independent work.
“My own business (ESE Machines) is my own boss, and I don’t have to discuss changes and policies every week,” he said. This move will enable him to do what he does best: design and build. In 1982, when the two-year non-competitive agreement he signed with his former partner ended, he began to manufacture new tools for the metal roofing trade.
The most important thing in his list is a new portable machine that can handle painted panels. His previous machine was designed for galvanized metal, but he realized that as paint companies developed more complex paints and coatings, painted panels became more and more popular. Stellrecht said: “Normally, you can’t bend painted metal without damaging the paint. With new paint, you can form metal with paint. This changes the entire industry.
“The machine must be replaced to accommodate the paint material, because zinc, copper and galvanized materials will not really be damaged,” he continued. “Whether you scratch or not, zinc is zinc. Copper is the same, but when you use painted materials, the roller must be slightly changed. The gap and the bending radius must be adapted to it.”
The new machine made its debut in the early 1980s until production was discontinued a few years ago due to a lack of available skilled labor. Another factor in this decision was the presence of other portable devices on the market and the growing reputation and focus of ESE Machine as a manufacturer of accessories and tools for the metal roofing industry.
ESE Machines (ESE is an acronym for Exton’s Ewald Stellrecht) “developed the tools needed by many industries,” Stellrecht said. “Before this, my hand tools did not exist. There was no suitable hand stitching tool, and no machine to unwind the coil, so I focused on making accessories, making tools for splints, placing the coil on the bracket and putting it into the machine. Reeler.”
Other companies copied his tools and equipment with the highest form of flattery. Competition may be unpopular, but he is content to be a small fish in the big lake he helped create and abide by his principle “Keep the price real, so no one spends a lot of money to buy the right tools and the right decoiler for the machine.”
His wife Irene, daughter Julie and employee Beth are part of ESE’s small but strong workforce. His son Mark is a successful regional roller mill manufacturer, supplying sheet metal to local roofers.
Today Ewald has time to work on other projects, including selling his patented wood splitting axe.
Long before the advent of portable roll forming machines, roll forming machines have been used in the sheet metal forming industry in the United States for decades.
Ryan Reed, the former editor of Metal Roofing Magazine (now a sister publication of Rotomolding Magazine), delved into the history of rotomolding machines in an article published in MR in 2005.
“…Once sheet metal became common in construction, metal workers developed machines that fold, bend and stitch them,” Reid said. “By the middle of the 19th century, if not earlier, the roller concept had been used for roofs.
“The power machine used to form more complex shapes in metal was developed at the turn of the [20] century. In 1910, Carl M. Yoder, a draftsman for a sheet metal company in the Cleveland area, designed a continuous cold-rolling forming machine. Used to make car mud sticks. Two years later, Trachte Brothers Co.* built a roll forming machine in Watertown, Wisconsin, to make corrugated water tanks for livestock.”
“By the 1960s,” Reed pointed out, “companies like Butler and Wheeling Corrugating were equipped with huge roll forming machines for the production of structural standing seams and wide, ribbed through-fastening panels for residential, metal and Pillar frame construction. These machines are long and heavy, with dozens of roller sets, and can be precisely shaped at high linear speeds.”
The regional trend of stationary machines is the most recent, first developing in the south, then slowly spreading to the east coast and spreading across the country. Today, due to the increasing popularity of metal roofing and siding in construction, its growth has become more rapid.
* Trachte Brothers Co was later split into two companies and is still operating today. Trachte Building Systems is headquartered in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and specializes in small storage facilities. Trachte USA, Oregon, Wisconsin, specializes in the production of steel structures for housing technology equipment.
Label construction roll forming machine, ese machine, ewald stellrecht, portable roll forming machine, roll forming machine company, standing seam metal roof


Post time: Jun-18-2021
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