Based in Illawarra, New South Wales, D&T Balustrade Systems has transformed the way it manufactures custom balustrades by adopting the Demmeler 3D welding system.

D&T is the preferred fabrication supplier to many major construction companies in Illawarra, and is regularly contracted for projects by the Kiama and Wollongong Councils. Specialising in strata management multi-story residential projects, D&T has the expertise to design and install balustrading to exact specifications for large and small jobs.

The investment in Demmeler tables from Leussink Engineering enabled D&T to produce extremely accurate work, which opened doors to bigger clients and larger orders.

“Within six months of purchasing our first table we changed our workshop around to fit another Demmeler table in,” says Luke Szabo, Business Director at D&T. “The decision to bring this system into our factory impressed our clients with the level of accuracy we were able to achieve. And because of this improved accuracy, the work came flooding in from our mining client.”

Demmeler tables enabled D&T to produce work precisely to the millimetre and exactly as per the stringent requirements of their mining client.

“Building exactly to the sizes required is key,” Szabo adds. “And with what we were able to do with this bench, we were getting products sent to us (that other companies had fabricated) to square them up and fix issues that had occurred during the fabrication process.

“We realised early on that whilst our methods for making balustrades and other products for the housing industry were fine with the processes we were using, the accuracy required for what we were fabricating for the mining industry was not quite good enough.”

Previously, D&T had been using a sturdy but simple steel bench with traditional methods of squaring their jobs up. Fabricating with aluminium and not steel meant that they couldn’t tack the job to the bench to keep it in position.

“We had no real way of setting the job up once and moving forward,” explains Szabo. “During the fabricating process we had to constantly re-check that the job hadn’t moved out of square, which takes time. And while it sufficed, it wasn’t very accurate.”

Since acquiring two Demmeler tables from Leussink, D&T fabricates all its products on them to achieve engineered accuracy. Over time Leussink has worked with D&T to engineer and adapt the system to suit workshop requirements.

“We fabricate steel, aluminium and stainless steel, and the Demmeler table system handles each of these effortlessly,” Szabo attests. “With the Demmeler system, we set up the stoppers and clamps at the start of the process, which holds the job in place for welding. Once the job is locked in, it just doesn’t move at all because it can’t, and this really speeds up fabrication time and improves our accuracy.

“Having a table full of holes and accessories that fit perfectly into those holes means we are able to set the job up and clamp the job pretty much in any location and into any position. If the frame size changes, we just pull the clamp or locating bolt out and move it. I think of it like a Meccano set.”

www.leussink.com.au
www.dtbalustrade.com.au