Above: Cascadia Metals began building an addition in September 2024 and began startup of the Butech Bliss line in September 2025
September, 2026- A Canadian company needed a way to produce dead-flat material for a host of applications across multiple end products that are expected to receive hard wear.
Its investment in a Butech Bliss stretch-leveler line “was driven by the need to expand our processing capabilities and better serve the evolving needs of our customers,” says Jamie Moreland, assistant branch manager for Cascadia Metals’ service center in Brandon, Manitoba.
“The line gives us the ability to produce consistently flat material while improving the quality and precision of the finished product,” he says. “The line can process material thicknesses ranging from 0.047 to 0.375 inch, strengthening our capabilities and allowing us to support a broader range of customer requirements.”
Cascadia Metals was established in 1994 and has grown from a regional metal distributor into a service center that supplies customers across Canada and the Western United States. Today, Cascadia operates 15 locations across North America, with nine branches in Canada and six in the Western United States. Over the years, the company has continued to expand its geographic footprint, product offering, inventory and processing capabilities to better support customers across a wide range of industries.
The company employs about 400 people, 60 of whom work in Brandon.
MATERIAL CHOICES
Cascadia stocks and processes a broad range of products, including hot-rolled, hot-rolled pickled & oiled, cold-rolled, weathering and various coated steels; stainless steel flat and long products, aluminum flat-rolled and extrusions, copper and Rheinzink. “We provide processing and value-added services that allow customers to receive material closer to the size, form, and specification required for their operation,” says Moreland.
“We sell to flat-bed trailer manufacturers,” among other high-strength parts manufacturing. The advantage of the new Butech Bliss line, he says, is “the material needs to be completely flat before parts are formed, punched and laser cut. We can now process a Grade 80 hot-rolled for transportation equipment. It has a high tensile strength. And with this line, we can even go up to 100,000 psi.”
Moreland notes that the new line “stretches both edges, too. Our master coils are 48 inches to 72 inches wide and between 45,000 and 60,000 pounds.”
Cascadia Metals’ customers operate across a diverse range of industries, including construction and building products, agriculture, transportation and trailers, industrial manufacturing, data centers, energy and infrastructure, oil and gas, mining, food equipment, marine fabrication, and other metal fabrication applications.
The Brandon branch has a couple other processing lines. “One does precision leveling, which produces a high-quality product, especially hot-rolled steel 12-gauge to 3/16 inch. We have a second precision leveler for 30- to 16-gauge material. We have all the gauges covered in Brandon,” Moreland says.
The investment is about building capacity for high-quality, precision-processed metal sheet.
CREATING OPPORTUNITY
“The new line strengthens our operation in several ways. From a business perspective, the line is not just about producing material faster. It expands what we are capable of offering from Brandon, helps us serve existing customers more effectively, and creates opportunities to pursue new customers and markets that require higher-quality, precision-processed sheet.”
Ultimately, says Moreland, “this investment is about building capacity ahead of demand and giving our customers another reason to rely on Cascadia Metals as both a material supplier and processing partner.”
He says the service center is “already seeing new business come in. We have a big customer base, and when they upgrade their own equipment, we get part of their business.” Before the new stretcher-leveler, Cascadia produced precision-leveled flat sheets up to inch thick, “but now we are able to level up to -inch. We are getting more business from existing customers, covering a wider range of the material they are using,” Moreland explains.
“It is a very expensive product to ship out and be rejected for quality. You want to do the job properly.”
Having the new line in place “has also attracted new customers.” The investment was part of a warehouse expansion of 132,000 square feet. “That’s where we put this new line in.” The company began construction of the addition in September 2024 and began startup of the Butech Bliss line in September 2025.
Moreland reports that Butech “was here for at least a month to train operators. We started at the higher gauges and worked our way down to lighter gauges.”
Balraj Gill, marketing coordinator for Cascadia Metals, says that alongside the increased steel processing capacity, the company is “expanding into aluminum extrusions to support sidewall applications for trailer manufacturers.” Including its range of stainless steel productsincluding channel, beam, square and rectangular tube, pipe, and custom profiles“we work with OEMs to provide aluminum extrusion solutions tailored to their specific manufacturing needs.”
Moreland notes that the greatest portion of products that ship from Brandon are going to fab shops, which sell into agricultural equipment manufacturers in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. “Ag equipment is very important in the region. These parts range from grain augers, air seeders and cultivators to grain handling and harvesting equipment.”
Because of the new capacity, the service center is receiving more business from existing customers, covering a wider range of the material that they use.
LINE BUILD
EQUIPMENT SPECIFICATIONS
The cut-to-length line and stretcher-leveler combination line at Cascadia Metals in Brandon, Manitoba, was built as follows by Butech Bliss.
• Maximum capacity: 0.250 inch thick by 74 inches wide at 100,000 psi; and 0.375 inch by 74 inches wide at 50,000 psi
• Maximum strip width: 74 inches • Maximum coil weight: 30 tons
• Pack length: 25 feet max with end-tamp
• Line speed: Up to 200 fpm
LINE FEATURES:
• Coil storage conveyor with cross-bay transfer car
• Hi-back coil loading car with hold-down
• Dual expanding stub uncoiler with automatic edge guide
• Synergy hydraulic roller leveler with work roll cartridge system and individual work roll motors and drives
• Hydraulic crop shear with auto-gap
• 1,000-ton stretcher-leveler
• Brush roll scale collector with vacuum system
• Steering feed roll
• Direct-drive shear with quick-change knife cartridge system
• Drop stacker with side and end sheet tamping
Butech Bliss, 330/426-7236, butechbliss.com
Cascadia Metals, 204/728-9484, cmetals.com.
