With about 140 miles of the Columbia River to respond to —from the mouth of the river to Bonneville Dam — the city of Portland (Ore.) Fire & Rescue needs fast boats to cover all that territory.

That need will be satisfied in the next two years as Oregon Iron Works (OIW), Clackamas, Ore., builds the two new 40-knot, fast-response fire and rescue boats for Portland.

The aluminum boats will measure 54′•16′ and be powered by twin MTU 8V2000 M84 engines, each rated at 1,085 hp at 2,450 rpm. The MTUs will turn ZF 665TS reduction gears and Rolls-Royce FF450S waterjets. For firefighting, each MTU will also drive a 3,500-gpm Hale fire pump on the front end.

The boats will have three monitors— two 1,500-gpm on the bow and one 4,000-gpm on top of the cabin — as well as numerous hose connections.

Concept design and performance specs for the boats were put together by Jensen Maritime Consultants, Seattle, and OIW is doing the detailed design and construction.

Melissa Hertel, JMC’s project manager for the job, noted that this is the first time the company has worked with OIW. “We’re excited because they do neat stuff, like secret boats for the SEALs.”

OIW has built about 300 boats, mostly for military customers, said Josh Pruzek, vice president, marine division, at Oregon Iron Works. “These have been patrol boats, unmanned boats, lots of stuff for SOCOM (Special Operations Command) and prototype development.”

Pruzek said OIW’s boats are primarily aluminum, but “we’ve done a lot of steel and some composite, as well.”

In addition to the marine division, OIW has divisions that specialize in nuclear, aerospace, hydroelectric, defense and transportation manufacturing. The company was founded in 1944 in Portland and has been under the same management since 1974.

The two boats for Portland Fire & Rescue will be OIW’s first fireboats. Pruzek said they won’t be building a JMC design.

“They [JMC] put together a design spec for the city of Portland, but our boat is a clean-sheet design based on the intent of their spec, but it doesn’t utilize any of their hull lines, per se. The RFP that the city put out had a concept design from Jensen, but it wasn’t one that required that you use their hull form. It was more of a performance spec and these are the things that we want on the boat, but it’s not built from any Jensen lines.”

OIW is working with Donald Blunt and Associates, Chesapeake, Va., on the hull form.

The first fireboat is scheduled for delivery in January 2014 and the second in August 2014.

Portland Fire & Rescue currently has two fireboats in service — a 42-footer built by Rozema Boat Works in 1996 and a 40-footer built by Workboats Northwest in 1983. The 87′6″•20′6″, 12,000-gpm fireboat David Campbell, built in 1927, is in reserve.

— Bruce Buls

BY EMMA HALL

Five Oregon companies were honored by the Oregon Governor’s office as leaders in the sustainability field at the Northwest Environmental Conference and Tradeshow on Dec. 4. The awards were established in 2006 by an Executive Order from Ted Kulongoski. Secretary of State Kate Brown presented the awards, applauding industry leaders for helping Oregon prove it is possible to grow the economy while still protecting the environment. “Oregon is known around the world as a pioneer in sustainability,” she said.

Manufacturing Award: Oregon Iron Works

Clackamas Metal fabricator Oregon Iron Works’ entire mission revolves around sustainable transportation. The company prides itself on creating local jobs and supporting local industries in procurement.

Oregon Iron Works Vice President Chandra Brown said manufacturers have a bad reputation when it comes to the environment. “Manufacturing is coming forward in the green market, and we’re going to continue that,” Brown said.

Full Story:

http://www.oregonbusiness.com/on-the-scene/8717-sustainable-businesses-honored-at-nwec-conference

“’Made in Oregon’- a phrase that is music to my ears. I’m excited that Portland’s new fireboats will be built right here by Oregon Iron Works,” said U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley. “This is a needed investment for Portland Fire & Rescue and a great way to help create jobs in Oregon.”

“Portland Fire has an aging fleet of fireboats that must be taken out of service on an increasing basis for repair and maintenance, impacting our marine response capabilities,” notes Commissioner Randy Leonard, “These two new boats will insure dependable emergency response on Portland’s waterways for the next 40 years.”

The aluminum boats will be built at the Clackamas, Oregon plant back to back with the latest navigational equipment, pumps, and controls. They will be powered by twin 1080 horse-powered engines that will drive two jet pumps, enabling the fireboats to achieve 40 knots, or just over 46 miles per hour.

Each boat will be 50 feet long and 15 feet across the beam. The boats will be capable of pumping over 7,000 gallons of water per minute to fight land and marine-based fires, as well as pump water to fire engines, if needed, during a catastrophic emergency. The boats will be ready to place in service in approximately one year.

“As a local small business manufacturer that employs hundreds of skilled Oregonians, we are delighted to build these reliable, safe, high-performance fireboats for the City of Portland,” stated Robert Beal, Chief Executive Officer of Oregon Iron Works, Inc. “It’s good for our economy, it’s good for the safety and protection of our local citizens, and it supports real family-wage jobs with benefits.”

About Oregon Iron Works

Oregon Iron Works, Inc. (OIW) is a specialty manufacturing firm with commercial, marine, nuclear, aerospace, hydroelectric, defense and transportation manufacturing divisions. Founded in 1944 in Portland, Oregon, the company has been under the same management since 1974. They have been building high performance aluminum, composite and steel hulled marine craft for the United States and other Governments and commercial operators since 1984, with over 300 boats delivered. The small business currently employs over 400 employees and is headquartered in Clackamas, Oregon, with additional manufacturing facilities in Vancouver, Washington. For more information visit www.oregoniron.com.

(Washington, DC) Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced today that the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) has selected Oregon Iron Works, Inc. to manufacture two modern streetcars for the DC Streetcar system. The new vehicles will be built in the United States and will run – along with the three vehicles the District already owns — on the H Street/Benning Road line beginning in 2013. The proposed Cooperative Purchase Agreement sent to the Council utilizes an existing contract for streetcar vehicles between Oregon Iron Works and the city of Portland, Oregon.

“This contract, which we have sent to the Council for consideration, reaffirms our commitment to begin streetcar service in the District next year,” said Mayor Gray. “Investing in streetcars makes sense both economically and environmentally, and we must continue to move forward with the program.”

“We are excited to partner with Oregon Iron Works,” said DDOT Director Terry Bellamy. “These streetcars, combined with the three cars previously purchased, will give us a fleet size that will allow us to successfully deliver a safe and reliable transit system for the District of Columbia.”

Oregon Iron Works (OIW) was founded in 1944 and now has more than $100 million in annual sales and 400 skilled craftsmen and support employees. It is the only domestic manufacturer of streetcar vehicles and has the only streetcar test track in the US for testing vehicles before they are delivered.

“We are extremely proud to be supplying American-made, modern streetcars to our nation’s capital,” said Chandra Brown, Vice President of Oregon Iron Works. “This means more manufacturing jobs throughout the United States for us and our great subcontractors.”

More Information

Contact Oregon Iron Works to learn more about the industries we serve and our state-of-the-art CNC and steel fabrication capabilities.

Call Us: 1.503.653.6300

Unsurpassed Quality

OIW fabricates to the highest quality standards. Our customers receive reliability, predictability, performance and quality through their entire project’s fabrication schedule.

The result is outstanding finished product, from the material sourced, to the complete documentation.

Learn more about our
UNSURPASSED QUALITY.

LARGE MACHINING FOR CHALLENGING FABRICATION PROJECTS

Oregon Iron Works’ (OIW) large capacity machining and manufacturing delivers quality and performance, in every finished piece, for every customer.

Large Capacity Makes All the Difference.

• 110’ multi-axis traveling floor mill
• 40’ open-sided planer mill
• 30’ open-sided planer mill
• Welding positioners with capacities up to 120 tons
• Overhead, straddle lift and gantry cranes for largest components
• State-of-the art, climate controlled paint booth
• On site, direct rail and ocean going barge access for delivery

We fabricate steel, stainless, aluminum, titanium, plastics, tooling board, and other ferrous and non-ferrous alloys.

Custom quality control and quality assurance programs ensure adherence to the most demanding codes and specifications for the nuclear, aerospace, hydro, marine, transportation and heavy construction industries, including ISO, NQA-1, ASME, AISC, ABS and AWS.

Questions about OIW’s CNC Machining capabilities?

Contact Oregon Iron Works to learn more about how our state-of-the-art CNC machining and steel fabrication capabilities can work for you.

Call Us at 1.503.653.6300 or click the contact button below.

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Crane Hotline, March 29, 2011

OIW Working on the Installation of John Day Dam

By Tri City Herald Staff
Published: Jan 14, 2011

HANFORD — A massive door that will shield workers from radiation was installed at the Hanford vitrification plant this week.

The 102-ton door was lowered through the roof of the Pretreatment Facility, the largest building at the plant, and placed on top of an adjoining 85-ton door that was installed last month.

“This installation was particularly complex due to the size, shape and layout of these two massive doors,” Ty Troutman, Bechtel National area project manager for the facility, said in a statement. “It required extensive planning by our skilled craft and engineers.”

The carbon steel doors come together to form an upside-down L-shape. The upper, heavier door is oriented horizontally and will be the largest in any vit plant building. It measures 52 feet wide and 15 feet tall.

The lower door is oriented vertically and measures 15 feet wide and 27 feet tall. Both are 10 inches thick, including a stainless steel liner.

They were manufactured by Oregon Iron Works Inc. in Portland.

“Setting these doors, as well as the overhead crane last month, marks a transition in the Pretreatment Facility from a civil construction focus to mechanical installations,” Wahed Abdul, of the Department of Energy, said in a statement. “This will enable us to complete construction in 2016 and reach operations by 2019.”

The doors will be controlled using three giant motorized drive screws — two in the upper and one in the lower door. The screws are 20 feet long and about 3 inches in diameter. The upper door will slide open and closed vertically, and the lower door will slide horizontally.

The doors separate the canyon-like center of the Pretreatment Facility, known as the “hot cell,” from a maintenance area that will be used to service an overhead crane and remote-handling equipment. When operational, the hot cell will be used for the waste radioactive separations process and will be highly radioactive and inaccessible by humans. All hot cell maintenance will be performed using the crane and remote-handling equipment.

A third shield door separates the maintenance area from the rest of the Pretreatment Facility. The two doors installed recently and the third door will never be open at the same time.

Construction of the building is 34 percent complete.

by The Columbian

Monday, November 29, 2010

Crews from Oregon Iron Works in Vancouver have finished work on a 30-foot-by-98-foot curved panel that will become part of a new navigation gate near the John Day Dam.

The 250-ton gate section, one of four pieces that will fit together in the final downstream gate, is just one component in a $50 million effort to replace aging equipment along the Columbia and Snake rivers. The project will result in a 14-week halt to barge traffic upstream of The Dalles, Ore.

Vancouver-based Tidewater Barge, unable to navigate as it normally would, announced several weeks ago that it would temporarily lay off 200 workers due to the project.

But Tidewater officials have called the project necessary, because it will replace aging lock gates that are nearing the end of their life spans.

The component built by Oregon Iron Works, a subcontractor to Portland-based Advanced American Construction, was loaded last week onto a barge at the east slip of Vancouver’s Columbia Business Center. The barge is scheduled to leave for Bingen later this week, where it will wait until contractors are ready to receive the gate component, said Scott Clemans, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In addition to the John Day lock gate built by Oregon Iron Works, Vancouver-based Thompson Metal Fab Inc. has built a 750-ton gate system that will be welded into a large gate at the Lower Monumental Dam.