Ready to Roll and Bend? Carell Corp. and Eagle Bending Machines are Built to Last
With thousands of metal fabrication machines in the field, the companies continue to increase inventory levels to support customers in a rapidly expanding manufacturing sector.
Posted: April 4, 2024
In 1993, with zero customers and a borrowed card table, chair and typewriter from his mother, David Donnell founded Carell Corp. in Stapleton, Ala., to provide dependable plate rolls, angle rolls, tube and pipe benders and other fabricating machines. At the same time, Donnell also founded Eagle Bending Machines, Inc. to provide high quality section benders. The 100% American-owned Eagle Bending Machines carries products manufactured by one builder, Italy-based BPR Curvatrici. Eagle Bending Machines is the exclusive North American provider of that line of machinery.
Now, 31 years later, Carell Corp. has placed more than 9,137 machines in North America, and Eagle Bending Machines has placed more than 9,181 machines in North America. As founder, owner and president of both companies, Donnell’s background in commercial construction writing contracts for structural steel and miscellaneous metals and architectural finishes, as well as five years living in Italy working for a manufacturer of roll bending machines and angle rolls, has served him well in providing machinery solutions to the metal fabrication industry.
The companies’ combined provide an extensive range of fabrication machinery and section bending and fabricating solutions. Eagle Bending Machines includes ring rollers, section benders, angle rolls — whatever moniker you would like to put on them, Donnell pointed out. “They are three-roll bending machines for profiles, tube and pipe, extrusions, and structural steel sections,” he said.
Carell handles everything that is not part of Eagle Bending Machines such as all types of plate rolls including, two-, three- and four-rolls, single patch machines, as well as angle rolls, “many of which are much larger than what Eagle carries,” Donnell pointed out.
Additionally, Carell is more oriented toward higher volume production or larger structural steel metal fabrication companies that do up to 10” pipe and 8” or 10” angle iron and so on. “And then, of course, Carell handles the tube and pipe bending machines, rotary draw and rotary compression to the pipe bending machines,” Donnell said. “And rebar benders as well.”
“With both Carell and Eagle, we also supply quite a bit of custom tooling for ring rolling machines, three-roll angle rolls and so forth, and we are very strong in bending extrusions,” Donnell said. “We have an in-house machine shop.”
With this capability, Donnell can submit a drawing and then provide a quote for tooling for a customer, generally within a few hours, which is a rapid turnaround time. “We do not depend on the Europeans to manufacture the special tooling or custom tooling,” Donnell said. “We make it right here.” Products are tested for proper fit and touch ups can be made on the fly, if needed.
What’s more, regarding tube and pipe rolls from both Eagle and Carell, “we stock all of the common sizes in OD, tube, Schedule 40, and Schedule 80 pipe sizes,” Donnell added. “So, nine times out of 10 we have what the customer wants on the shelf.”
Machines are “Bullet Proof”
Carell and Eagle Bending Machines pride themselves on their 30 plus years of expertise in manufacturing and supplying plate rolls, angle rolls, tube and pipe benders, and section benders, among other machines. Donnell said that over the years, machinery manufacturers have asked if he will begin offering press brakes and shears, or ironworkers, as well as other types of fabrication equipment. Donnell said he has resisted because he wants to concentrate on the equipment he knows the best, having 35 years of experience with roll bending machines, plate rolls, angle rolls and tube and pipe benders.
That expertise bodes well when it comes to incorporating new machinery into the lineup. Carell offers a new line of plate rolls with the Parmigiani VBH Series four-roll double pinch plate rolls. The machine has a manufacturing range of 1’-to-26’ long, 16 GA to 6” thick. Carell also carries Parmigiani’s latest generation of CNC controls that include 3D CAD graphics and auto programming on a 19-inch touch screen.
Donnell said the control is a great addition to Carell’s lineup because he believes the technology is a notch above competitors.
In addition to the precision and accuracy of the new series of plate rolls, Donnell appreciates the way the frames of the machine are built, their geometry, and their electrical and electronic systems are “bullet proof,” he said. “They are easy to maintain over the lifetime of the machine, which just makes it extremely attractive from a buyer and a maintenance standpoint.”
With their dependable and long-lasting fabrication machinery and equipment, as well as their 12-to-36 month parts warranty, Carell and Eagle Bending Machines are positioned to respond to customers’ demands. In response to the increase in machinery purchases by customers as they come out of challenges that resulted from the pandemic, Donnell’s companies have increased their inventory levels in order to have more products on hand, such as CNC machines. “The growth is rapid enough in the United States in manufacturing that they [customers] want products now,” Donnell said. He added that although the companies have more products on hand, they don’t have everything in stock. Customers should plan for a six-month machine building process.
In addition to an increase in demand for manufacturing equipment, other changes are underway in the metal fabrication industry. And while Donnell noted that computer controlled machines are important in the sector, he cautioned that operating the machines isn’t as simple as pressing a button. “Somebody has to write the program, tweak the program,” Donnell said. “For example, when it’s summertime, the metal is hot. When it’s wintertime and your steel is out under a pile of snow, it’s the same material, the same machine, but it’s going to bend differently. The machine has no clue what temperature that metal is — there are no temperature sensors on this type of equipment.”
Donnell shared the following tips to consider when exploring the addition of CNC machines in your fabrication shop. What is your business? What is your throughput, and is it enough to justify the use of a CNC machine? What kind of job shop are you, for instance, are you a general job shop where you do five parts for one job, 22 parts for another job and so forth, as opposed to 1,000 parts of the same job? What kind of operators do you have? Are they experienced enough to tweak a program to make it produce the product that is needed, and are they able to respond to a challenge when the metal is being deformed or compressed? Who is going to create the program?
“If the operator on the floor doesn’t know what to do when the big red warning triangle shows up in the middle of the screen, he is dead in the water,” Donnell said. “Or if they damage the control stand, or they drop a load of steel on it or they knock it over, or they run over it with a forklift, you have set yourself up for a possible repair cost or replacement cost anywhere from $10,000-to-$30,000 for a control system.”
Supporting Customers as They Adapt to Market Changes
Donnell and his team continue to field a variety of tooling and custom application requests from customers for the companies’ machinery if not every day, at least twice a week. Leading industry sectors include personal watercraft/marine industry, recreational vehicles, and heat exchangers for use in products such as water heaters, among other industries.
Carell and Eagle Bending’s machines have supported companies as they respond to market demands for products ranging from utility racks and brush guards for ATVs; and at one point in time, accessories to support people who were fishing while on jet skis.
An industry responding to changes due to efficiency requirements centers on heat exchangers, boilers and hot water heaters. “We do quite a bit with companies that manufacture that type of equipment or those types of things,” Donnell said, “whether it is something as simple as a heater for your pool or the heat exchangers for hot water heaters. And this is for residential, commercial and custom types.”
Carell and Eagle Bending Machines are also working with marine industry companies that have acquired companies that specialize in products for boats, yachts and ships. “They find out that we can custom build machinery for their particular type of highly customized heat exchanger that they need on a boat, which are different than commercial or residential heat exchangers. We have had great success, and it’s often a challenge to figure out what is going to work. We can build it, train them and bring them up to speed.”
Donnell and his team believe the future of fabrication machinery and manufacturing in general in the United States is rosy. He pointed out that as companies reshore operations back to the United States they are building new facilities and installing new production lines. “I think a very good lesson, hopefully, was learned from the pandemic,” Donnell said. “I mean, we don’t even make enough toilet paper in the United States, okay, the most important of all rolls, right?
“All the statistics that I have read and looked at, and the customers that we have spoken with, are optimistic and that is good for Carell and Eagle, and it is good for my competitors, too,” Donnell continued. “The pie is always large enough to accommodate all the slices, and each person finds out sooner or later where they fit in to that pie puzzle, and we found our niche and we do well in it.”
Metal Artists Trust in Carell Corp. and Eagle Bending Machines
An area of professional pride for founder, owner and president David Donnell is how metal artists utilize fabricating machinery from Carell Corp. and Eagle Bending Machines, Inc. to create their sculptures, and decorative and ornamental projects. These metal sculpturers and artists projects are displayed in museums, historical buildings, in downtowns throughout the country, and numerous other places. “These works of art that these artists create with our machines — that brings me a lot of satisfaction to see the beauty in what they are creating,” Donnell said. “You just wouldn’t believe the craftsmanship and the artistry and the beauty of the sculptures and gates and stairways, chandeliers, bridges and so on that they create.”
Carell and Eagle Bending Machines have been ardent and long-time supplier members of and active participants in the National Ornamental & Miscellaneous Metals Association for 30 years. In fact, Donnell served for six years on the association’s board of directors. The companies are also supplier members of the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America.
