Wiley Tiki Talk
Welcome one and all to Tiki Talk!
First of all, what’s with the name right? Well, Tiki Talk comes from our fun project where we used scrap metal to build our unique Tiki Bar. At our scrap metal Tiki Bar we’ve shared a few cold ones and exchanged some pretty good (and also some pretty bad) ideas. We figured it would be a great name for our virtual gathering place.
Tiki Talk is our blog, but more importantly we want it to be a place where we can address your questions, share your comments and let you know what is going on with our company. We want everyone to take part…customers, potential customers, experts and novices alike. We hope it will be a fun and friendly exchange.
Look, if we could hang and have a couple of beers and play a round of golf with everyone, we would do that. Believe me we would do that. For now, Tiki Talk is the place. Pull up a stool and join in.
Finally, A Good News Story!
It’s rarely good to be front-page news, but we’re excited about our moment in the spotlight. To see why take a look at The News Herald from May 12-18th. At the top, you’ll see a headline that reads, “New investment, jobs to help Wiley Metal”. This is a good news...
Women Welders Wanted: Welding Experiencing Steady Growth
You’ve heard of Rosie the Riveter, well how about Wendy the Welder? Right now it’s unlikely you know many women welders, even if you work in the fabrication industry. That’s because only about 5% of the welders in the US are women, according to a recent NBC News...
Four Reasons to Work at Wiley Metal
Henry Ford has a lot to answer for. Yes, he gave us affordable transportation, but he also gave us the moving assembly line. It cut the time and cost of building cars but it also created a whole new type of work: repetitive, monotonous, and unsatisfying. Work is...
What Hoosier Hospitality and Metal Fabrication Have in Common
We won an award recently. We’re rather proud of that and prouder still that we’ve won it more than once. It’s not in our nature to brag though. Despite being told that talking about it would be good for business we’d rather just get back to doing what we do:...
Managing Offcuts: How We Handle Scrap From Metal Fabrication Processes
Offcuts and scrap are inevitable in metal fabrication. Handled right, (which means with gloves,) they’re worth money. Handle them the wrong way and we’d be throwing money away, and who likes doing that? So for anyone interested in controlling manufacturing costs,...
Matching Press Brake Machine Type to Needs of Your Fabrication Shop
Along with blanking/shearing and welding, bending is one of the core metal fabrication processes. After being cut from sheet metal or plate, pieces that need bending go onto a press brake. Having just added an American-made Accurpress Accell, we now have many...
The Top 5 Advantages of a High-Power Fiber Laser Cutting Machine
Superhero movies are filled with characters who’ve been granted great power. Some, like Spider-Man, use it responsibly, others, (looking at you, Thanos,) not so much. Well, we won’t claim to be superheroes but we are about to gain a lot more power. In our case it...
Aluminum Extrusion: Porthole or Seamless Extruded Tubes?
Hollow aluminum section can be extruded by either the porthole or the seamless process. Ask Wiley which is right for your project.
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE EXTRUSION PROCESS
A skilled craftsman makes a difficult job look easy. Take barrel-makers (coopers) as an example, or consider glass-blowers. And then there are aluminum extruders, (both the people and the businesses who do it.) We’d put them in that category too. After all,...
2021 Manufacturing and Metal Fabrication Forecast
As 2020 disappears in the rearview mirror many of us are wondering what 2021 has in store. Well we don’t have a crystal ball or the gift of second sight but it’s fun to speculate. It’s also important for our business that we do it. By anticipating what customers...
Will the Reshoring Trend Continue?
So often what looks like a trend turns out to be just a fad. Consider Exhibit 1: the Segway. Weren’t we promised this would revolutionize urban transportation? When did you last see one? When was the last time you even saw a mall cop riding one? How about another...
Consumption of Aluminum Extrusion Just Keeps On Rising
According to housekeeping guru Marie Kondo, if something isn’t useful or doesn’t “spark joy” you should get rid of it. Well one thing that sparks joy in our busy fabrication shop is aluminum extrusion. As we’ve mentioned many times, it’s incredibly versatile, which...
