Over the past year, our business has been successful enough for us to outgrow our current premises. While this is great news for business, it does mean that we have had to consider moving from our current location to accomodate our customers' orders and allow us to expand even further. We will be able to increase our levels of production by employing more Craftsmen as well as increase the range of our product line.

We are very pleased to be moving our business, workshop & home up to Pennsylvania. This will be a 500 mile move. Over the next few weeks, we will be slowing down business until the shop needs to be moved. There will also be period when the shop will close down & all production will cease for short time while we pack up equipment, tools & machinery.

This will mean a couple of things for our customers.

Custom orders will be on hold until our new larger shop is re-opened. Until we relocate, in-stock items, such as standard fence post caps & backsplash tiles, will continue to be sold and shipped as usual. During the relocation, these will experience delay until we re-open.

Some items, such as pot racks, are standard items but often made to order. You may experience a small delay in shipping. Please bear with us during that time.

Steels can be classified by a variety of different systems depending on:

* The composition, such as carbon, low-alloy or stainless steel.
* The manufacturing methods, such as open hearth, basic oxygen process, or electric furnace methods.
* The finishing method, such as hot rolling or cold rolling
* The product form, such as bar plate, sheet, strip, tubing or structural shape
* The deoxidation practice, such as killed, semi-killed, capped or rimmed steel
* The microstructure, such as ferritic, pearlitic and martensitic
* The required strength level, as specified in ASTM standards
* The heat treatment, such as annealing, quenching and tempering, and thermomechanical processing
* Quality descriptors, such as forging quality and commercial quality.

Gibraltar Industries Inc., Buffalo, N.Y., has purchased for an undisclosed price the stock of British and German expanded metal mesh manufacturers that together operate as Emco.

The stock of Expanded Metal Co. Ltd. and Sorst Streckmetall GmbH has been purchased from Clifton House Acquisition Ltd., a U.K.-based private equity company, executives said.

The acquisition follows by a year a major push into expanded metal by Gibraltar with the purchase of Birmingham, Ala.,-based Alabama Metal Industries Corp. (Amico) for about $240 million. Amico was described at that time as the U.S. and Canadian market leader in expanded metal manufacturing, with about a 25-percent market share (AMM, Sept. 19, 2005).

Emco, with sales of about $62 million, is a leading supplier of expanded metal mesh parts and finished goods in key European markets, Gibraltar executives said Wednesday.

"The Emco acquisition gives Gibraltar a global leadership position in the rapidly growing expanded metal market," Brian J. Lipke, Gibraltar's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Emco manufactures large, small and micromesh expanded metal products for filtration, architectural, security fencing, electrochemical, agricultural, leisure, building products and automotive markets, executives said. It operates manufacturing facilities in Hartlepool, England, and Hannover, Germany, as well as a warehouse and sales office in Poznan, Poland. The company serves customers in Britain, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, China and India, they said.

As electronic, triple-coil metal detectors, Machine-Mounted Separator (MMS) systems sense and remove ferrous and non-ferrous metals from moving virgin and regrind material. Units reject contaminants as small as 0.5 mm and may be installed directly at infeed of extrusion, injection, and blow molding machines. Able to work with gravity and pneumatic systems, cube-shaped MMS units employ pneumatically driven slide gate combined with venturi-driven vacuum rejection mechanism.


NEWTON, KS - Bunting Magnetics Co. has introduced a new Machine-Mounted Separator (MMS), which is an electronic metal detector designed for the plastics industry. These Machine-Mounted Separators are engineered to detect and reject all types of metal contaminants and can be installed directly at the infeed of extrusion, injection, and blow molding machines. Compact, cube-shaped MMS units fit where headroom is limited and work with both gravity and pneumatic systems. Their sturdy construction is designed to support the weight of hoppers, conveying components, mixers, and other equipment.

Bunting Machine-Mounted All-Metal Separators are highly sensitive triple-coil metal detectors engineered to sense and remove both ferrous and nonferrous metals - including iron, stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass, lead, and tin - from moving virgin and regrind material. Units react to all conductive metals and reject contaminants as small as 0.5 mm. Unlike some competitive units that have a blind-spot during their rejection phase that allows contaminants to slip past, the Bunting Machine-Mounted All-Metal Separator features a fast pneumatically driven slide gate combined with a venturi-driven vacuum rejection mechanism. This unique design results in highly accurate detection and rejection. By helping to prevent metal scrap from entering processing machines and contaminating final product, these separators reduce costly machine damage and downtime and increase overall production efficiency.

Bunting will feature its new Machine-Mounted All-Metal Separator this June at NPE 2006: The International Plastics Showcase in Chicago. Please visit Bunting at Booth 4609 for more information on this new product.

Finns poured into the streets last week to fete their monster victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, and Finland's president congratulated latex-masked hard rockers Lordi for breaking the country's losing streak.

After 40 years of trying and eight last-place finishes, Finland finally won the melody contest in Athens with the death-metal band's unconventional piece "Hard Rock Hallelujah."

Since March, when Lordi won the competition for the Finnish entry, many in this highly self-conscious nation feared the metal band would damage the country's reputation.

Lordi's apocalyptic piece was heatedly debated on radio and TV shows, and the exploits of the band, which performs in costume and does not reveal its members' names, regularly hit tabloid headlines.

In his Sunday sermon, Archbishop Christodoulos of the Greek Orthodox Church asked, "Who would have expected that the first prize could have gone to those who showed up [looking] like monsters, like Satans? Is this art?"

A part-owner of a Connecticut scrapyard died Wednesday afternoon when his clothing was snared in a winder, pulling him into the machine and crushing him.

Police identified the man as Richard Larson, 54, of Kensington, Conn., the treasurer and part owner of Regan Metal Corp. in New Haven.

Larson apparently was working on the winder alone. According to a local news report, he had reached over an open safety door when his clothing became snagged and he was dragged into the machinery, but a spokeswoman for the company said it is still unclear what happened.

Another worker, hearing an unusual noise, crossed the yard to investigate and discovered Larson. He reportedly hit the machine's safety switch and called 911.

Police determined that Larson's death was an accident but the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the incident. Calls to the OSHA office were not returned Friday.

A judge in Kansas City, Mo., is considering a motion to dismiss a charge OF second-degree involuntary manslaughter filed against the driver of a truck hauling scrap metal.

The attorney for William Copeland said there was no carelessness on Copeland's part that would warrant felony charges in the death of Patricia Walker, 25, of Odessa, Mo.

The woman was killed Aug. 20 when she was struck by a piece of scrap metal that had fallen out of Copeland's truck on Interstate 70.

An eyewitness to the accident testified that Copeland appeared to be in control of the truck and was not speeding.

According to defense attorney J.R; Hobbs, there was no overt act of carelessness on Copeland's part, noting that the scrap metal was already loaded into Copeland's truck when he picked it up. He said Copeland worked to secure the load.

Another eyewitness to the accident said the load of scrap metal appeared to be stacked evenly.

Accident investigators testified that a piece of scrap metal weighting 38 pounds was in the middle of the highway for two hours before another motorist stuck the metal plate, kicking it up and into Walker's path.

SNK plans to open another temporary location test for Metal Slug 5 in Japan later this month. In fact, there will be three tests of the next Neo Geo-powered arcade game in the popular side-scrolling shooter series, taking place over the weekend of October 24-26.

The tests will be held at the following arcades:

Tokyo: Ikebukuro GIGO Osaka: Chateau EX Fukuoka: Casino Kyoumachi

If, on the off chance, you happen to be in the neighborhood over that weekend, drop by any of those three to check out the new Slug in action. The finished game has yet to acquire an official release date -- SNK says it will arrive in Japanese amusement centers "one of these days" -- but distributors point towards a release in November.

After a few delays and not many official comments from SNK, Metal Slug Advance finally made its playable debut at E3 2004 on two kiosks. Early impressions are that the game is still too early in development (30% complete according to SNK) to fairly judge, but the graphics and action hint at something that could be amazing. The main problem with the version on the show floor is that it is too slow -- probably about half as fast as the arcade versions -- so it feels almost like the game is running in slow motion.

The good news is that beyond that issue -- which is probably a consequence of it being shown while early in development -- the game already features superbly detailed graphics. The demo kiosk for Metal Slug Advance was set up right next to one of the home ports of the recent arcade games, and the foreground graphics were very comparable. The backgrounds in Advance couldn't match the arcade port on more powerful hardware, but we were impressed overall.

We only had a chance to play through the first two levels (okay, okay -- we had the time but played too poorly to get past the first two levels), but based on that, we saw no signs of the creative, branching level designs and RPG aspects from the Neo Geo Pocket versions of Metal Slug. It appears that Metal Slug Advance will be much closer to its arcade cousins, with a focus on pure action, dodging enemy attacks, and using guns well. We saw a few player-favorite guns such as the heavy machinegun and the rocket launcher, but we don't know what others will end up in the game. You have grenades as well (controlled with the R button).

Unlike the most recent arcade Metal Slug, there is no slide attack in here. It controls more like the first four Slug games, where if you hold down and push the jump button, you will shoot towards the ground -- something that was very difficult to pull off in Metal Slug 5.

The enemies you face are the on again, off again military soldiers that shoot rockets and whip out their knives, which is the same return to the series' roots seen in MS5, so the game seems to have selected elements from different arcade Slug games rather than strictly copied one of them. It's still early, but the game shows a ton of promise, so we're hoping the game can keep the series going strong.

Metal Slug 3 for PS2 and Xbox and Metal Slug Advance are on GBA to Europe in October 2004, European publisher Ignition Entertainment announced today. Ignition's picked up both games -- although the PS2 version of Slug 3 never made it to North America -- in what should be good news for all European Metal Slug fans. The famous 2D shooter series by SNK has been on and off the radar quite regularly and it's good to see publishers still picking up titles like these for other markets.

Players can choose from 10 vehicles exclusive to Metal Slug 3, such as the Slug Copter and the bizarre Elephant Slug, and the Xbox version will feature the same Xbox Live scoreboard support included in its recent North American release.

Kevin: Another Metal Slug...should you care? Well, it’s a port of arguably the best game in the classic series of 2D shooters. And it’s the first Metal Slug arcade-to-console port that isn’t deficient in some way—no slowdown, no flicker, no nothing. Most importantly, though, it’s still among the best 2D action games ever created.

Not that Metal Slug 3 is for everyone. It takes a certain sort of person to appreciate such a difficult game, especially one that requires so much replaying to complete. The fun doesn’t come from reaching objectives or anything—it’s from playing over and over in search of the perfect game or the highest score. Sort of like the modern-day-shooter classic Ikaruga on GameCube, actually, except a fair bit easier.

The Xbox version has a couple of bonus modes, but they aren’t playable until you beat the game, and that’s enough of a challenge in itself (especially considering Metal Slug’s stinginess with continues). The $40 price may be a bit steep for a four-year-old arcade game, but Slug is still just as fun as it was back in ol’ two-triple-aught.
G. Ford: There are many breeds of gamers: casual, sportos, spastic...and of course, the hardcore. Metal Slug 3 is tailor-made for that last group—folks who can appreciate side-scrolling 2D graphics and don’t mind restarting over and over again (you want midmission continues? Pansy!) or walking to school uphill both ways in the snow. Hard-as-heck bosses? Thank you, sir, may I have another?

Not you? Then there’s no shame in skipping this—it’s truly a frustrating game. All you fellow masochists, though, here’s your fix until the next Contra shows up.

XBN—Che: The Metal Slug series, known for its gorgeous 2D art of war, hits Xbox with a refreshing bang. I’ve always loved its skewed and deformed sense of humor and design, but hated that, as a quarter-munching arcade shooter, the games had no longevity. Slug 3 makes amends with exclusive new levels and a simple continue system that forces you to master each level before unlocking the rest. Polished, well-balanced, and freaking difficult to boot, this Slug is a testament to gaming artistry.