Out with the old plate roller, in with new capabilities

Running a specialty shop sometimes demands specialized equipment. Skilled employees can spin gold from straw when they have to, but when it’s time for a shop to invest in new equipment, it’s important to gear that investment to customer needs. That’s precisely what Kucher Steel in Edmonton, Alberta, did when it went in search of a new plate roll last year.

Complex Growth

Kucher Steel has built its reputation on forming thicker plate.

The shop was founded by Nigel Kucher in 1992 as a general fab shop, but that gradually changed.

“As the years progressed, we kept getting requests to form thicker materials,” said General Manager Ryan Donovan. “We invested in bigger and bigger machines and eventually just walked away from the easy-to-form work. It’s definitely a niche market to be in. We work on the most challenging parts and offer quick turnaround times.”

Although the shop primarily serves the oil, gas, mining, and construction industries, Donovan notes that it really serves the needs of anyone with thicker materials. The company runs a 10- by 20-ft. plasma machine, a 20- by 40-ft. oxy-plasma table, five plate rolls, six press brakes that can handle anything between 80 and 2,000 tons, and a new mill with a 150-in.-long table.

“We’re able to offer highly challenging custom parts in extremely quick turnaround times,” said Donovan. “If you had to buy parts out of the U.S. it might take you 12 weeks, whereas we can do many jobs in under a week. And all while encouraging a safety-first attitude on the job.”

Bespoke Investment

In 2024, the company found it was time to let go of one of its old plate-rolling workhorses.

“This machine was more than 100 years old and had been through a number of refurbishments over the years,” said Donovan. “It couldn’t roll more than 3-in.-thick plate, and we knew we had a need and a demand for harder-to-form materials and thicker parts.”

The challenge was to find a machine that could not only roll thicker material but also do so with a tight diameter. The ideal machine would be able to roll 4-in.-thick material to a 23-in. ID on very thick plate.

“We get a lot of requests for 1.5-in. shells with a 24-in. diameter,” said Donovan. “We had to make sure we could do that comfortably. Thick material with a tight diameter is somewhere we can stand out among our competitors.”

fter talking to all the major manufacturers, Kucher ended up working with 1960 Seravesi to have a custom plate roll built to fit its specific requirements.

The resulting machine handles 11-ft. material comfortably. It is a variable-geometry roll (a three-roll machine on which the bottom two rolls can move in and out) with 1,400 tons of pressure.

“The added benefit of the variable-geometry roll is that we can treat it like a press brake as well when required,” said Donovan.

This was the first time that Kucher has worked with Seravesi. The machine was ordered in September 2024 and delivered June 2025.

“They were able to customize something more precisely to our needs rather than giving us something off the shelf,” said Donovan. “Since we’re a custom shop, it really worked well for us.”

Donovan noted that the controls were fairly intuitive to learn and operate. Three team members have been trained on the new machine.

“It took our team a few days to get used to it because it’s a different roll type, but Seravesi worked with us on that, coming in to train us here. We were up and running with just a few hours of training.”

New Markets

With the capabilities of the new machine, Kucher Steel is finding new customers, as well as efficiencies with jobs it has previously done.

“Already we’ve had about three orders that we couldn’t have taken without the new machine,” said Donovan.

The plate roll also is helping with the company’s specialty pipeline repair sleeves—reinforcement sleeves designed to revitalize old pipelines.

“We use the new machine to roll thicker materials for this part of our business,” said Donovan. “We were always able to do it; the new machine just improves our efficiency. For some orders where we’d once have to roll two half shells and then weld them together, we can now skip a weld.”

Specialized Team Members

As a specialty shop, Kucher isn’t just selling the capabilities of its machines; with thick, complicated parts, the company is selling the capabilities of its team members.

“Because of the nature of our work, guys don’t tend to jump from machine to machine in the shop,” said Donovan. “They really specialize in their area.”

This requires a lot of in-house training, because fabricators don’t come ready-made for this type of work.

“We’ve been lucky with hiring. We’ve had a lot of referrals, with family or friends bringing people into the company. There’s no outside training for what we do, so we do it in-house, often training very inexperienced people from the ground up. Sometimes that’s easier because they learn immediately how we want the work done. It makes them more efficient in a shorter time frame. They also learn not to cut corners. They learn that safety is important and that sometimes what seems like the slow way is the fastest, most productive way to do something. Rushing doesn’t save you time, in the end.”

The company uses a shadow program, having less-experienced employees assisting senior operators.

“Sometimes that apprenticeship takes three months, sometimes it will be a year, depending on the task, the equipment, and the individual. We’d rather take the time than have them flounder.”

Donovan insists that safety is the first priority. Then comes quality and, finally, delivery times.

“Safety is key, though,” he explained. “Our guys, they’re one-offs; there’s not anyone like the tradespeople we have. We have to keep work safe because we don’t want to lose those special people.”

Kucher Steel now has three team members specializing in making the new machine work as effectively as possible for its customers.

The relationship continues as Seravesi advises on particular jobs.

“I think our shop foreman and their shop foreman have spent a lot of time together on the phone working together, tweaking things,” said Donovan. “The design of the machine is great, but I guess they’re working with us to make sure it stays great.”