A full line of pull-behind trailers, decorative hand-rails, production runs of components for construction companies, custom truck racks…and an endless variety of truly custom parts…are all produced at K&K Manufacturing in Cross Plains, WI.
This small fabricating shop grew out of the need to diversify when the family farm was struggling for profitability in the late 1980s.
Kip and Kim Kalscheur, two brothers from the rural family of seven children, started “welding things together” mainly creating repair parts for agricultural equipment.
Today K&K Manufacturing has its own structure which has been expanded twice, located on the family farm property. But location is about the only thing that has stayed the same.
K&K has added four employees, purchased fabricating equipment, and now delivers parts to companies as far away as Grand Island, NE. In the summer months they struggle to keep up with orders for their own line of trailers—available only at the K&K facility.
When you are in charge of a busy, tightly-run shop, it is hard to get away to check out new equipment. So Kip appreciated the opportunity to see a Piranha ironworker in action at his own facility. One of Piranha’s several demonstration trucks in operation around the country stopped at K&K.
“The big thing was seeing the ironworker on that demonstration. We saw the P-50 in action and said we have to have one of those,” says Kip. “When it started producing parts during that demo we asked if it would slow down…because the other ironworker slowed down during a run. Nothing works as fast as this machine.”
The Piranha P-50, single-operator model doesn’t slow down. The 10 horsepower motor that’s standard on this model provides unmatched speeds when compared to under-powered machines from the competitors. K&K’s Piranha, capable of punching 60 holes per minute at a 1/2" stroke, reduced the run time of one of K&K’s construction component jobs by more than 50 percent. Kalscheur explains, “The two parts we do the most have ten holes each and we run 400 parts at a time. Speed matters. On the other brand ironworker it took a full two days—on this machine it takes less than a day.”
Automatic urethane hold-downs on the punch strippers assure production speed without compromising the quality of the punched part. Fabricated parts are flat with clean, burr-free holes.
Even though the P-50 is used primarily for larger punching jobs because of its ease and speed, all of its fabricating capabilities come in handy. K&K always takes time to serve a customer by making one or two custom parts. Every feature—the plate, angle and bar shears, bending attachment, the punch end, and the coper-notcher—is used at least once every day.
“When we first looked the machine over we asked if Piranha could replace the coper-notcher with something else, but the way the machine is setup they couldn’t. And we’re glad they didn’t. Now we use that coper-notcher every day,” says Kip.
“Everything about this machine is better,” he adds. “It’s almost three times faster and it doesn’t go through punches any quicker than the old machine. I can tell you for sure that when we need to buy another machine, it will be a Piranha.”
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