The Springfield Division received a call from a Cement Company just before the Memorial Day weekend, for help with a large 8’ diameter propeller style fan that self-destructed. The fan lost one blade and bent over 6” of the rest of the blade tips. Mark Russell and Kim Shellabarger had a meeting with the plant manager on Friday and learned that the request was for a “patch job” with no warranty, just to get them up and running until they could acquire and install a new fan. We were also informed of the high production loss per day, while this fan was out of service. The deadline to return the fan was set for Monday, Memorial Day.
On Friday afternoon, the fan and shaft assembly was transported to our shop in Sprinfield. Kim Shellabarger formulated a plan for success and advised our second and third shift supervisors that this was Job One in our shop. Dave Howard and the second shift dismantled the bearings and ensured that the bent blade tips were cut off. Tim Powers and the third shift fitted and welded the broken blade back on with support straps.
When this work was completed, the fan and shaft was shipped to Horner Fan & Fabrication. New blade tips were fabricated to bring the fan blades back to their former length. The blade tips were welded on the existing blades and all fan blades were straightened, as best they could be.
Horner Machining Service then received the fan for balancing. Marty Sphatt did a great job of dynamic balancing the embattled, overhung fan. Believe it or not, we delivered the fan to the customer on Saturday night, well ahead of the deadline. The customer then installed the fan and is quite pleased that it is still in and running great.
This job defines what our company is all about – providing a solution for our customer’s problems. With teamwork, we can do the hard jobs right away but the impossible ones take just a little longer- like this one!
Thank you to all Horner employees who contributed to the success of this job.
