Best Bleacher Ever! No, Really!

Northwest School Equipment recently completed installation of new telescopic bleachers for Elkton HS. Elkton is a small town on the lower Umpqua River in Douglas County Oregon. It is a community with a long history in the forest products industry and a great deal of pride in their community. When I first approached the school about purchasing new bleachers they agreed that in the interests of safety and convenience it was time to replace their vintage early 50's telescopic bleachers. I offered them fully automatic powered bleachers with colorful plastic seats. The response was prompt and negative. No Plastic Seats! The alternative I offered was a bleacher with wood benches made from finger joint edge glued Southern Yellow Pine. The response was prompt and negative. No Southern Yellow Pine!


On closer inspection of their old bleachers the solution was clear. Recycle the boards from the old bleachers for use on new modern powered Interkal bleachers. The original bleachers were big heavy open deck tiers of clear vertical grain douglas fir boards that would fetch a very good price in the recycling market. Unfortunately the 16" rise open deck format with no aisle or ADA seating was a long way from meeting building codes or safety requirements. The plan seemed straight forward; remove and refinish the boards and put them on a new Interkal bleacher.


Yes, it seemed easy, until we learned that the bench boards were too narrow, some boards were warped, and some had big notchouts in the back to accomodate the brackets on the old bleachers. Additionally Interkal was concerned that the boards might be too heavy for a standard 3 section bleacher understructure. The engineers at Interkal solved that problem with a beefed up 4 section bleacher. Andy Rapp of Advanced Woodcraft took on the job of remilling and finishing the boards to fit on the Interkal platform. To overcome the challenge of bench boards that were too narrow, the bench boards became the risers and the deck boards became the benches.

The result of a lot of hard work by Andy, Brian Kruse (Elkton SD), Interkal and Northwest School Equipment is arguably the prettiest bank of bleachers ever built.

Clear vertical grain Douglas Fir with 4 coats of finish gives the bleachers the look of fine furniture.







In addition to the fine grain quarter sawn fir benches the Interkal bleachers feature fully automatic self storing aisle rails and are code compliant at the touch of a button. Previously a great deal of labor was required to open or close the bleacher bank, now the operator completes the task in minutes at the touch of a button!

Check out the media spin at: http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/sports/columnists/25178820-41/bleachers-elkton-gadda-says-wood.csp