bama_ed
It's kind of fun to do the impossible-Walt Disney
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2004
Mummer, a bigger truck means you can fill it up with all the stuff you could possibly need on your trip. 
Today we packed up at Salt Fork and started our journey back to Alabama which is another day-and-a-half drive. But I had planned for my second "interesting thing" for this trip (the first being the Football HoF visit). So we took a detour at Columbus and drove to the little rural town of Jackson Center, Ohio because they build some trailers there. And have for almost 50 years.
Last year at this time I posted a thread about my visit to the T@b trailer factory for a tour. This year we went to see where the iconic Airstream trailers are built.
The tour starts at the Airstream Service Center/gift shop/chapel-to-all-things-silver-and-shiny.
We had a group of nearly 50 people so we split into two groups and got an introductory talk from our tour guide.
They have some vintage trailers on property in future hopes of their own museum. But the gold camper was the camper of the Airstream company founder, Wally Byam.
We walked to the factory floor that was nearly doubled in size about three years ago. Airstream is part of the Thor conglomerate family but they were purchased in 1980 so they've been owned for a while.
Sadly pictures are not allowed inside the factory. Other than this sign, no pictures inside.
Like the T@b factory, Airstream is highly vertically integrated. They build their own cabinets, windows, frames, and such. They buy the best available RV appliances and machines their own aluminum skins (made by Alcoa). Computerized routers carve the aluminum skins - it's pretty neat. They have 750-800 employees and produce 80 trailers a week and have a 1300 unit backlog which is a good problem to have. The orders we saw being produced today had order dates of the last week of July. There are no robots. Everything is hand made and assembled. They are beautiful (and expensive).
Their newest trailer is called the BaseCamp seen here as the two smaller units on the right with the dark oblong windows. It's smaller size is supposed to appeal to the "tiny house" millenial types.
They are built in a separate building across the road. So it was an interesting tour. Airstream currently produces units 16-30 feet in length (although in the past they have been built longer) and the typical 30 footer has about 1300 rivets.
Camping down around Cincinnati tonight and we will be home tomorrow.
Bama Ed
Today we packed up at Salt Fork and started our journey back to Alabama which is another day-and-a-half drive. But I had planned for my second "interesting thing" for this trip (the first being the Football HoF visit). So we took a detour at Columbus and drove to the little rural town of Jackson Center, Ohio because they build some trailers there. And have for almost 50 years.
Last year at this time I posted a thread about my visit to the T@b trailer factory for a tour. This year we went to see where the iconic Airstream trailers are built.
The tour starts at the Airstream Service Center/gift shop/chapel-to-all-things-silver-and-shiny.
We had a group of nearly 50 people so we split into two groups and got an introductory talk from our tour guide.
They have some vintage trailers on property in future hopes of their own museum. But the gold camper was the camper of the Airstream company founder, Wally Byam.
We walked to the factory floor that was nearly doubled in size about three years ago. Airstream is part of the Thor conglomerate family but they were purchased in 1980 so they've been owned for a while.
Sadly pictures are not allowed inside the factory. Other than this sign, no pictures inside.
Like the T@b factory, Airstream is highly vertically integrated. They build their own cabinets, windows, frames, and such. They buy the best available RV appliances and machines their own aluminum skins (made by Alcoa). Computerized routers carve the aluminum skins - it's pretty neat. They have 750-800 employees and produce 80 trailers a week and have a 1300 unit backlog which is a good problem to have. The orders we saw being produced today had order dates of the last week of July. There are no robots. Everything is hand made and assembled. They are beautiful (and expensive).
Their newest trailer is called the BaseCamp seen here as the two smaller units on the right with the dark oblong windows. It's smaller size is supposed to appeal to the "tiny house" millenial types.
They are built in a separate building across the road. So it was an interesting tour. Airstream currently produces units 16-30 feet in length (although in the past they have been built longer) and the typical 30 footer has about 1300 rivets.
Camping down around Cincinnati tonight and we will be home tomorrow.
Bama Ed
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