Middletown, VA
Welding & Fabricationin Middletown, VA
Virginia Welding & Fabrication runs a 5,000 square foot welding and fabrication shop in Middletown, VA, and a complete mobile unit that works inside plants across the Shenandoah Valley and Northern Virginia. We build structural steel, stainless, and aluminum weldments for facilities that cannot stop production while somebody figures out how to make a part fit.
Work runs from an on site repair weld on a piece of equipment that is already down, through full fabrication of platforms, frames, guarding, and supports built off your print in the shop and installed at your facility. Shop hours are Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
What this covers
Structural steel fabrication for plants and facilities
Most of what we build is carbon steel structure that carries something, protects something, or holds a machine at the right height. Plate, flat bar, angle, channel, and square and rectangular tube get cut, fit, and welded out on the table in Middletown, worked straight off your print or off the dimensions we take in your building.
Layout comes off the actual conditions. Before anything is cut we put a tape on the anchor bolt spacing, the beam elevation, and the clearance the finished piece has to pass through, because as built steel drifts every time a machine gets swapped and the print almost never gets marked up afterward. Parts go to length square on the band saw, get fit up and tacked on the table, then welded out in a sequence that keeps the assembly from pulling itself out of square. A frame that leaves the shop out of square does not bolt up on site, and that is time your maintenance crew spends standing still.
- Plate, flat bar, angle, and channel work
- Square, rectangular, and round tube weldments
- Base plates, gussets, clip angles, and stiffeners
- Equipment stands, skid frames, and support steel
- Mezzanines, stairs, handrail, and toe kick
- Loading dock guardrail, bollards, and forklift impact protection
- Machine guarding, barrier guards, and perimeter fencing
- Pipe and duct support steel and overhead grids
- Process piping and sanitary piping, fit and welded by our own crew
Stainless
Stainless fabrication for food and washdown environments
Painted carbon steel does not survive a washdown floor. We fabricate stainless access platforms, gowning and PPE stations, guards, carts, and tank and process support structures for plants where the part has to be cleaned as hard as the equipment around it.
Grade belongs in the quote, not in the field, so it is the first conversation. 304 covers structure and general plant duty. Anything wetted, anything near product, and anything seeing chlorides or aggressive cleaning chemistry points toward 316, since the molybdenum in it is what stands up to pitting. On a welded assembly the low carbon L grade earns its cost, because less carbon means the heat affected zone keeps its corrosion resistance. Tell us the washdown chemistry and the duty and we spec it with you before anything is ordered.
Seams get continuously welded rather than stitched so there is no gap for water or product to sit in, and welds get ground and blended smooth where the surface has to be cleanable. Design follows the same logic. No flat ledges that hold water, no hollow sections left open, nothing that cannot be reached with a cleaning tool.
- Stainless sheet, plate, tube, and angle fabrication
- Access platforms, grating, stairs, and handrail
- Gowning stations, guards, and equipment surrounds
- Custom carts, frames, and tank stands
- Continuous seal welds, ground and blended
Aluminum and sheet
Aluminum and sheet metal work
Aluminum tube and angle stock sits on the rack in the shop and we weld aluminum here. Aluminum shows up where weight matters: removable guards a single person has to lift, covers, walkway sections, and light frames that get taken off and put back on during a changeover.
Sheet metal work covers chutes, hoods, transitions, covers, pans, and enclosure panels. Thin material warps if it is welded hot and fast, so light gauge work gets clamped and sequenced to keep the panel flat instead of chasing it back into shape afterward.
- Aluminum tube, angle, bar, and plate
- Sheet metal chutes, hoods, transitions, and covers
- Formed panels, pans, and equipment enclosures
- Removable guards and lightweight access sections
Shop and field
Shop fabrication and on site repair welding
Built in the shop, installed at your plant
The assembly gets squared, checked, and hole matched on the table in Middletown, where a mistake costs shop time. What shows up at your building is a finished piece that bolts to what is already there, not a bundle of stock that still has to be marked out against your columns.
Repair welding where the equipment sits
When a hopper, frame, chute, or bracket cracks and the machine cannot be moved, we weld it where it stands. Cracks get ground back to sound metal and drilled at the ends so they stop running, then the weld is sequenced to keep the frame from pulling out of alignment. The truck side of that work lives on the mobile welding page.
Working inside a live facility
Send your hot work permit requirements and your lockout procedure along with the scope and we plan the job inside them. Work gets scheduled around your production window rather than through it, so tell us when the line is down before you tell us what you need built.
One contractor across the sequence
Fabrication, the rig in, the pad it sits on, and the removal of whatever came out run on one purchase order with one crew. Ryan Hartley owns the shop and works the jobs, which is the short version of <a href="/about-us/">who Virginia Welding & Fabrication is</a>. The man who quoted your steel is standing on your floor when it goes in.
Recent fabrication work
How we work
From print to installed steel
Send the print, the photo, or the measurements
A dimensioned drawing is ideal. A phone photo of the broken part with a tape across it works too, and for most maintenance jobs that is what actually exists.
Field verify and quote
For anything tying into existing structure we measure the real conditions on site, then quote scope, material, and lead time so you have a date to plan against.
Fabricate in the shop
Cut, lay out, fit up, and weld out in Middletown so the assembly is finished and checked before it ever reaches your floor.
Install in your window
We set it during the shutdown, the weekend, or the gap between runs, clean up behind ourselves, and hand it back ready for your electricians.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do you fabricate in the shop or weld on site?
Both, and most jobs use both. Assemblies get built in the Middletown shop where they can be squared and checked, then installed at your facility. Repairs on equipment that cannot move get welded in place from the truck.
- What materials do you work in?
Carbon steel, stainless, and aluminum. Plate, flat bar, angle, channel, tube, and sheet, plus stainless for washdown and food environments and aluminum where weight matters. Tell us the grade your print calls for and we will price the material with the job. If your buyer needs mill certs on material we supply, ask with the order so we source it that way.
- What do you need from us to quote a fabrication job?
A dimensioned drawing is the fastest path. Failing that, send photos with dimensions, the material and grade if you know it, the quantity, whether it is shop work or on site work, and the date you need it. Send it to info@www.virginiaweldingandfabrication.com or call (540) 931-1331.
- Can you cut and weld in our building without shutting the line down?
Often, and it depends on what sits above and below the work. Hot work gets planned to your permit process and energy gets isolated to your procedure before a grinder comes out of the truck. The hot and dirty stretch of the job gets staged short. Where the work sits directly over product or over a running conveyor, we put it in a gap instead of fighting it.
- Do you work to a specified welding procedure?
Tell us at the walkthrough if your job carries a procedure requirement or a code your engineer is holding you to, and we will tell you straight whether it fits what we do. Support steel, guarding, platforms, stands, and repair work usually does not carry one. Pressure boundary work and anything an outside inspector has to sign is a different conversation, and we would rather have it before the quote than after.
Get it moving
Send us the drawing or the photo
Call the shop Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM, or send the print and the dimensions and we will come back with scope, material, and lead time. Shop fabrication and field welding both run out across our service area, from the Middletown shop out through Winchester.