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Baseball Field Construction Project Demanded Reliability
Miller Electric Helps Dawson Welding Hit Homerun at Fenway Park Project
Fenway Park and its Green Monster is to Boston what the Empire State Building is to New York City. Only Fenway is treated with much more reverence and visited more often by locals.
For the uninitiated, venerable Fenway Park is home to the Boston Red Sox, a baseball team that boasts such legendary names as Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk and Roger Clemens.
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Johnnie Zarni (left), outside superintendent for Dawson Welding, Inc., and Rob Dawson (right), owner/operator of Dawson Welding, pose with one of the 11-ton columns they helped to install to support the new bleacher deck at Boston's Fenway Park. |
The Green Monster is the endearing name given to Fenway's 37-foot- high left field wall, which has vexed hitters and pitchers alike since the park's inaugural season in 1912. The Green Monster has a history of turning routine fly balls into game-winning home runs and jet-propelled line drives into mere singles.
"Bosox" fans regularly fill most available seats at cozy Fenway Park, which accommodates only 33,000-plus of the faithful, who worship at the altar of broken dreams, praying for Boston's first World Series championship since 1918. To make room for more fans and pay for the hired help, the Red Sox expanded Fenway's capacity to 33,871 in 2003 by adding 280 seats above the Green Monster. This year, the team added a deck over the right field grandstand to create space for about 190 luxury bleacher seats and a restaurant.
In both cases, The Red Sox depended on Marr Companies and Dawson Welding, Inc., of the greater Boston area, to ensure that the demanding construction timetables were completed on time, well before the first pitch on Opening Day. As is the case on the playing field, there was little margin for error.
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Johnnie Zarni (kneeling), outside superintendent for Dawson Welding, Inc., Rob Dawson (top left), owner/operator of Dawson Welding, and Tom Crowley (top right), general manager of ARCO Welding Supply Co., Inc., stand next to Miller's Big Blue® engine-driven welder/generator that played a key role in construction of a new bleacher deck at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. |
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Total Team Effort
It took a total team effort on the part of Marr Companies, Dawson Welding, ARCO Welding Supply Co., Inc. and Local No. 7 of the Iron Workers International Union to have the new bleacher section ready for the Red Sox 2004 season opener.
Marr Companies is one of the oldest and most respected names in the New England construction industry, beginning in Boston in 1898 as Daniel Marr & Son Company. A former sea captain, Marr used the rigging skills acquired at sea to launch his new business as a rigger and steel erector. Now owned by the fourth and fifth generations of the Marr family, the company includes Daniel Marr & Son Company, Marr Equipment Corporation, Marr Scaffolding Company, Marr Rigging Co., Inc. and Isaac Blair & Co., Inc.
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Johnnie Zarni (left front), outside superintendent for Dawson Welding, Inc., Rob Dawson (right front), owner/operator of Dawson Welding, and some of Dawsons operators stand next to Miller's Big Blue® engine-driven welder/generator that played a key role in construction of a new bleacher deck at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. |
Dawson Welding, of North Reading, was founded in 1981 by owner/operator Rob Dawson. His company is known for the high productivity and quality work of its operators, and the firm has welded on some of the most prominent projects dotting the Boston skyline. ARCO Welding Supply, of Malden, and general manager Tom Crowley supplied the Big Blue® engine-driven welders/generators and SuitCase™ 12VS portable wire feeders from Miller Electric Mfg. Co., which played a key role in enhancing productivity and helping accomplish the ambitious work schedule.
Bob Toto, general superintendent for Daniel Marr & Son Company, has high praise for the quality work performed by Dawson Welding. "Dawson is No. 1 in this state," Toto says. "Welding isn't just sitting there and striking an arc. It takes a great deal of knowledge about the many different types of wires and different grades of welds. Dawson has a wide range of experience."
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A Dawson Welding, Inc., operator uses Miller's Big Blue® engine-driven welder/generator to weld a cap that is used to cover bolts at the base of an I-beam support for the new bleacher deck at Boston's Fenway Park. The cap is installed as a safety precaution. |
He's also impressed with Dawson's quality and productivity, which is even more critical when working on such high-profile projects. "They're the best and the quickest, and almost 100 percent of the time all their welds pass inspection," Toto says.
"The whole key to this entire project was that everyone worked together," Dawson says. "And the critical factor was the time schedule, which requires that you have the people - and equipment - able to meet the tight demands of the job. Sometimes that's extremely hard to find because I demand perfection - I won't buy something that is just okay and will get me by. I won't do that. I have to have the best, and if it's not the best it's not in my arsenal."
Dawson points out "that's why I've got all Miller Big Blue diesel welding machines. They never break. I can't tell you how many hours I have on these machines; I have never, ever had a breakdown on them."
Ambitious Project
Aside from the tight timetable, the new deck for Fenway Park was a daunting project because of the intensive welding requirements. The deck is located above sections 3 and 4 of the outfield grandstand down the right field line. Construction of the deck required removing and replacing the four existing I-beam columns that support the right field grandstand with new columns made from grade 50 steel. The 11-ton columns feature flanges that are 18 inches wide by 2 inches thick. The deck itself consists of four massive I-beams, 60 inches on the flange and 2 inches thick, and 60 smaller web beams, 36 inches deep, an inch thick and weighing150 pounds a foot.
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A Dawson Welding, Inc., operator uses Miller's Big Blue® engine-driven welder/generator to weld a cap. The cap is installed as a safety precaution to cover bolts at the base of an I-beam support for the new bleacher deck at Boston's Fenway Park. |
"It was just a gigantic job, with the time schedule we were given, the weather and the whole nine yards," Dawson says. "This was a record-cold year, but there couldn't be any hiccups or anything."
Johnnie Zarni, outside superintendent for Dawson Welding, describes the scope of the work involved in constructing the grandstand deck. "Four huge columns had to be cut out. To do that, we had to suspend the roof, cut the old columns free, put in the new columns and weld them to the old bases.
"The area of the grandstand that we're talking about is 35 to 40 feet tall, and the new columns could be cut no shorter than 5/8-inch shorter than the space in which they had to fit. A 5/8-inch root opening was the maximum allowable by code. To fit these columns in we wanted a 4-inch root opening, but obviously you can't do that. We had to swing the columns in this space under the grandstand roof and make it fit," Zarni says.
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Dawson Welding, Inc., uses Miller's Big Blue® engine-driven welder/generator to weld four 11-ton columns in place to support Fenway Park's new bleacher deck for fans attending a Boston Red Sox home game. Operators welded 2-inch thick by 24-inch long full penetration moment connections (pictured) to secure the four columns. |
"We put kip staging - very strong shoring made out of 3-inch tubing that can support one ton - to shore up the underside of the right field deck that we were installing. We used a couple of 50-ton jacks under the bottom to support the weight of the load above so that we could move these 11-ton columns into place," Zarni says.
Dawson Welding operators then welded 2-inch thick by 18-inch long full penetration moment connections to secure the four columns. "When I say a full penetration splice that means the welding inspector comes back with the ultrasound and puts a little UT jelly on the column, uses a transducer to ultrasonically view the weld, and he looks for any impurities inside the weld to create a moment frame," Zarni says.
"We made 16 of these full penetration moment connections at the base of the four columns, and we added a full penetration connection in the web above as well. We did the same exact thing above on the tops of the columns to tie into the 60-inch wide beams up above," according to Zarni. "There are no bolts up there - it's all welded. It's a whole welded unit so that these columns are tied into the truss that sits on top of these columns."
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Operators for Dawson Welding, Inc., rely on Miller's SuitCase® 12VS portable wire feeder to enhance productivity and help accomplish the ambitious work schedule for the construction of a new bleacher deck at Boston's Fenway Park. |
A moment frame carries the sheer part of a structure to give it more axial (side-to-side) and lateral (up and down) support. A moment frame consists of steel beams and columns typically joined by a combination of welding and bolting. They resist lateral loads through bending of the frame elements. In the case of minor seismic activity and wind loads, the elastic property of steel causes the frame to return to its original shape without any permanent deformities.
Heavy-Duty Weldments
"It takes four hours per side to weld an 18-inch long weld 2 inches thick," Zarni says. "There are 43 pounds of wire in one side of each of the four columns."
He points out the reason the welds take so long is because, "you have to preheat the web to 225 degrees flame heat. We wrap insulated fire blankets around each column and we use strip heaters that plug into 110 volts to keep the columns at that temperature. That maintains the heat inside the web. We use 5/64-inch diameter E70T-7 wire that has a nickel base for expansion and contraction because there will be movement."
Flux cored wires with a high nickel content require constant and precise voltage control because if voltage drops, it degrades the arc which, in turn, adversely affects weld quality. At a work site such as the deck at Fenway Park, where the welding generators were located a fair distance away, it's critically important to have a generator capable of delivering the power to maintain a focused arc.
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Operators for Dawson Welding, Inc., rely on Miller's SuitCase® 12VS portable wire feeder to enhance productivity and help accomplish the ambitious work schedule for the construction of a new bleacher deck at Boston's Fenway Park. Dawson also helped construct the seats above Fenway's fabled Green Monster left field wall, which can be seen in the background. |
Dawson points out his operators were working about 320 feet from where the generators were located. "And when we worked on the seats above the Green Monster last year, we had to have over 600 feet of lead on our machines," he says. "We use 4/0 leads. Others may use 2/0 leads, but 4/0 carries so much better than regular welding leads. For Stick welding you can use anything, but for semi-automatic welding, 4/0 leads are the way to go."
"We wouldn't be able to do this type of welding if we didn't have the Big Blue generators," Zarni says.
"Big Blue provides constant and direct current right away. It gets hot quick, stays hot, and doesn't fluctuate throughout the day. Our constant voltage is constant voltage, and without these machines we couldn't power up the kind of feed we need. We use 350 to 400 inches of wire per minute and we are pouring it in there at anywhere from 450 to 500 amps, so that requires some serious voltage."
Big Blue generators have a rated output of 500 amps/40 volts at 100 percent duty cycle, delivering the power to dominate larger diameter electrodes, wires and gouge with carbons up to 3/8-inch.
Productivity Gets Boost
"If you don't have everything working just right your voltage is going to fluctuate, and if your voltage fluctuates that's when you're going to have problems," Dawson says. Problems can include cracked welds, weld inclusions and weld rejections because of appearance.
"That's why you have to go with high-quality components to get rid of a lot of your problems," he says. "If you do something half-decent and something else half-decent, then by the time you're done your product is only half-decent. But if you buy the best welding machines made and the best wire made, then there's a darn good chance you're going to have the best weld going out there."
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Operators for Dawson Welding, Inc., rely on Miller's SuitCase® 12VS portable wire feeder to enhance productivity and help accomplish the ambitious work schedule for the construction of a new bleacher deck at Boston's Fenway Park. Dawson also helped construct the seats above Fenway's fabled Green Monster left field wall, which can be seen in the background. |
Initial forecasts indicated the bleacher deck project would require 18 to 22 operators to complete all the welding. "We did it without a problem with 11 welders," Dawson says.
"We always need less manpower because we have better equipment. Given the sensitivity of the voltage of all these high-tech wires and sensitivity of all these new machines, it all works together so well that you don't need 20 welders. I have two guys - one can burn 100 pounds of wire a day and another guy is good for 60 to 70 pounds of wire a day," he says. "We pound wire. The average company will put in around 30 pounds of wire per day, where we do an average of 68 pounds per operator."
Why is Dawson Welding's productivity rate so much higher than the competition? "We spend so much time on research and development," Dawson says. "I spend a lot of time with Tommy (Crowley). Most of my help has come from my supplier and from the Iron Workers' Local 7." Dawson says he gets a steady supply of trained welders from Local 7's $10.4 million, state-of-the-art training facility that "has certified welding inspectors who teach the guys the right ways to weld."
For his part, Crowley says Big Blue's reputation for reliability and productivity translates into significant selling points that make his job much easier. "The Deutz engine is the most reliable out there. All the customers love it - there's no water pump, no radiator, no hoses," Crowley says. "It's tough to get a mechanic out to a job site to service a machine, and Big Blue will run 1,000 hours between oil service intervals. That's a huge factor when you're on a job site with 10 machines out there. You don't need to get a mechanic out there every three weeks to change the oil. You can run them for six weeks, which makes a big, big difference." Crowley notes the new Big Blue 500 has a turbo-charged Deutz 2011 diesel engine that out-performs even the venerable F3L912.
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Dawson Welding, Inc., uses Miller's Big Blue® engine-driven welder/generator to weld four 11-ton columns - like this one - to support Fenway Park's new bleacher deck above the right field grandstand. Big Blue provides the constant voltage needed to weld the full penetration moment connections that secure the four columns. |
Dawson says having the right team and the right equipment put the Fenway Park project well ahead of schedule, despite the tight timetable and horrible winter weather.
"I couldn't possibly say enough good things about Daniel Marr & Son and ARCO Welding Supply - they've been absolutely incredible to work with on this project," Dawson says. "And we couldn't have done this without our Miller equipment. I know there's not a better welding machine out there than Miller because I've used them all. I've tried every one on the market and I've wasted a lot of money. Miller is the Mercedes Benz of welding.
"If you have the right equipment, it makes you more productive, and when you're more productive, it allows you to bid new jobs tighter so that you can get the work. It makes you more competitive in the marketplace, and that's what it all boils down to," he says.
