Travelers passing through Vancouver International Airport now have the chance to glimpse a unique public art structure. SEI, a steel sculpture by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, is meant to represent the sei whale leaping out of the water.
Just how this structure was built and installed is a whale of a tale in itself.
Custom metal fabricator Reggin Industries, Inc. of Calgary, Alberta became involved in this project through a referral, and they then brought custom cutter Empire Cutting Corporation on board. Both companies are used to unique jobs that push the boundaries of their equipment and creativity.
“[This project] combined a lot of architectural structural engineering with this vision of an artist,” says Vincent Larsen, president of Empire Cutting. “That’s turned out to be one of our specialties—seeing what an artist is trying to do.
“They don’t speak engineering or architectural or my equipment language, so one has to be able to interpret what they’re trying to do.”
The artist provided hand sketches showing the general shape and size of what he wanted as well as a view of the final site.
“We worked very closely with the artist in his conceptual stages; that way, he could understand the limitations of what was possible to do with sheet metal,” says Brett Kostka, senior designer, Reggin Industries. “We knew what he wanted it to look like, but we had to make sure that we were going to achieve that intent.”
Reggin Industries used SOLIDWORKS software to design the sculpture (even though AutoCAD is the standard in construction projects).
“With this project, it was critical that we could plan and build it in 3D, predict how we were going to assemble all these parts and where we were going to have problems, and how much weight we were going to have to lift with a crane to put the next panel on,” says Kostka.
Next they worked with an outside engineer to get the plans stamped. They figured out the details for the connections, reveal lines, internal mechanisms, and how the parts came together.
Because the timeline was so tight—they only had three months—Reggin Industries ordered parts and started building as soon as they reached the more detailed part of the design.
The design wasn’t fully finished until late into fabrication. “We weren’t even sure how we were going to put everything together with lots of the parts, until almost the last week,” says Kostka. “It was good because, if there was ever some sort of a hiccup or something didn’t fit together, we could almost instantly troubleshoot it and fix it for the next pieces we had to design.”
The sculpture includes three parts. The first is the internal structural ribs made of 304 stainless steel that connect the external skins to the structural steel. The ¼-inch ribs run perpendicular and attach to the structural 12-inch 304 stainless steel pipes. The 12-gauge (0.1046-inch) ribs run perpendicular and attach to the ¼-inch ribs. This support structure was designed like the inside of an aircraft wing with holes in the metal framework that take out weight while still keeping the integrity of the structure.
The second part is the 12-gauge structural steel. Structural “boxes” were made to create frames and support for the voids.
The last section is the 12-gauge external, cosmetic skin made of 316 mirrored stainless steel rated for outdoor exposure.
“The reason why the external skins had to be 12-gauge was because we have to basically roll them by hand,” says Kostka. “If it’s too thick, you’ll have a really hard time forming it.”
Forming was easier, however welding and grinding were not.
“With mirrored finish stainless steel, once you weld something, you have to grind out and polish that weld down and bring it back to a mirror finish,” explains Kostka. “With a thick material, you can do more grinding and polishing because, as you polish the surface, you’re actually removing material.”
Reggin Industries sent in orders to Empire Cutting. Because the deadline was so tight, Empire Cutting was constantly receiving design files, cutting, and shipping the pieces out.
“We were cutting as fast as they were drawing, and they were installing as they were drawing,” says Larsen. “You really need to do it that way, unless you’ve got really deep pockets and can hold it.
“It’s best to just keep the cash flow moving as the bill goes out—it gets paid that way.”
Larsen always made sure to double check the dimensions, as things are sometimes thrown off when opening files in different software.
“When you take all those curves and things and interpret it into a flat drawing, I have no way of telling if that’s the right curve or the wrong curve because it’s not a circle,” says Larsen. “So we developed a way of doing a back check or a double check using different software.
“[During] cross check, if they all match, then we know everything’s good to go. If something’s off, one of the drawings will be out and then we have to investigate a little further.”
When the files were set, Empire Cutting began cutting on its 400-watt Kern Laser HSE Laser System with metal cutting option. (Note: Empire also used its OMAX® MAXIEM® 1530 waterjet cutter to cut a few ¼-inch stainless steel pieces.)
Empire typically cuts with oxygen, as they did on this job. “[Oxygen] guarantees that we’ll have the best and most successful cutting,” says Larsen. “You can cut with nitrogen, but the machine isn’t that powerful—so your very, very thin gauge you can cut with nitrogen.”
One of the big cutting challenges was on the mirrored stainless steel panels. The pieces come in with vinyl film on top to protect the surface. This film is laserable, but if it isn’t adhered properly, the laser could cause it to pillow up and hit the machine head. These blowouts lead to holes or divets in some very expensive material.
Empire Cutting couldn’t take that chance, so it pre-burned the vinyl.
“We changed the settings so it would only cut the plastic,” says Larsen. “We went on the inside and the outside of the cut line and burned the plastic film.
“Then we peeled it out so there was no chance of the vinyl getting anywhere near the head.”
Empire Cutting cut about a hundred pieces. “It interrupted a lot of the other jobs,” says Larsen. “but thankfully a lot of them coming through were thicker products, so we did those on the waterjet instead.”
Over at Reggin Industries, the shop was also swamped. Workers had to rearrange the shop to fit the sculpture and still have room to receive and ship out materials.
“It was definitely the busiest project that we’ve ever had,” says Kostka. “At one point, we had about ten fabricators working full time on it—all at once in the shop.”
Reggin Industries built a shipping frame and assembled the sculpture within it. The company had to make sure the sculpture was small enough to fit in a truck, as well as under bridges and power lines on the way to the final site.
“We took the sculpture in its final position and tilted it down about six feet,” says Kostka. “We designed a shipping frame around that envelope.”
The shipping crate also helped give them references to take measurements “Nothing on the sculpture was square so it was really hard to measure anything on the sculpture itself,” says Kostka.
To assemble the sculpture, everything was welded with the exception of a few structural pieces that were bolted in place with typical pipe bolts. Some pieces were also welded and partially glued.
“As soon as you weld on mirror finish, you’re going to burn through and create brown carbon markings from the heat,” says Kostka. “So there were some places where we actually had to find a way to glue the panels on.”
After about two months of fabrication, the sculpture was complete, and it was loaded onto a semi with a drop trailer and driven to the airport for installation.
Since the sculpture was installed at the mall outside of Vancouver International Airport, there were a number of constraints: It had to be installed at night when air traffic is at a minimum, air regulations dictated that workers couldn’t exceed a certain height with the crane, and the sculpture had to be lifted over buildings to be put in place since installers couldn’t drive over the new stonework to get to the job site.
Reggin Industries rented a crane with a very long reach, and it was a nailbiting moment as they watched the crane lift the sculpture through the air. But it went off without a hitch, and SEI was anchored and bolted onto the base plate.
By Ashley Bray
All Photos: Reggin Industries, Inc.
