DMR's K-5 Gutter Machine Photopage part 1

This is our gutter machine that we use to form the K-5 gutters we install It forms them from a 12" coil of pre-painted sheet metal shown here in white. A full aluminum coil is around 400lb and has to be loaded with a fork lift, down through the removable roof panel.

The machine was made for us back East in 1995. It is called the Mach II, if that means much? I did special order it new, with an extra set of rollers that cost me an extra $1500. They bend a safety hem on the back side of the gutter. Very few machines in this are have this feature.

As far as I know, the only other gutter machine with this safety hem feature is located at Gutterman's Supply, a wholesaler to Contractors for gutter and roof flashing supplies. They do small run-outs for Contractors who do not have a gutter machine.

I bought run-outs from them for two years, until I was sure that gutter installation was the type of construction I wanted to specialize in and to invested in a gutter machine of my own. The machine they had was the reason I spent the extra dollars to have this safety hem extra set of rollers installed. It cost about $15k with the cost of the trailer.

This was the first trailer I had for our gutter machine. The cabin shell was 5 feet wide and 10 feet long on the outside. Originally it only had one axel under it. I later installed these two smaller sets of axels. I made an aluminum cover for it right off the bat. I was not going to let it get rained on. Some of the rollers are stainless steel, but the bearings are not and will rust up. The machine has a thick aluminum shell over the red painted steel tubular frame. Most gutter companies in this area have there machine right out there in the weather, for ease of loading new coils of gutter coils of sheet metal, and within a few years the machine is ruined, but the companies keep using them. The rusty rollers dent the sheet metal and scratch-up the paint. Rebuilding of the machines cost several thousand dollars. I have replace about a dozen sets of bearings myself, and it has been kept out of the weather this whole time.

I bought a larger double axel trailer to house our gutter machine and transferred it over in the first part of 2001. I kept it in the workshop and made a similar, but improved shell for this new trailer. all this before doing another gutter job, keeping the gutter machine out of the weather.

Here is the finished results. The interior is about a foot and a half wider, and 2 feet longer. this gives us a lot better ability to move around the machine and transport supplies. A box of downspouts are about 10 feet 2 inches long. The old trailer was about 9 feet 8 inches on the inside, so I could not load them in the trailer. I had made it just big enough to house the machine, with less concern to ease of functionality. We suffered with that smaller trailer for 6 years, until I got the gumption to up-grade to the bigger trailer. The trailer it's self is not any wider. I just enclosed the wheel wells this time.

Here it is with a solid copper coil on the cradle, just behind the main coil spool. I don't sell a lot of copper gutters, as they are very pricy.

I do not push them on my clients. I rarely even speak of copper gutters. Copper is not going to last longer. It's main advantage is the fact that you will not need to bother to repaint them in the future, but most of the clients who ask for them do it for the brag points.

One of the nicest features of this gutter machine is the guillotine on the rear-end of the machine that chops off the gutter run-out. It leaves a nice clean factory edge. Very nice, and easy to operate.

Here is a shot of the rear-door closed. Yes, it one of the only trailers to sport a set of gutters and downspouts on both sides of the trailer. Not to mention the no-clog options added to them. I also have all my trailers fir with separate amber turn signals and white back up lights. This is not common.

There is also working electric brakes on one of the axels for safety. It is the law to have electric brakes on one of the axels on all double axel trailers, but it is hard to enforce.

Here is a good shot of the gutter being extruded out of our machine. This shows the double doors I scabbed off the old trailer. In mid 2002 I changed it over to this single door that is raised by gas charged hydraulic lifts off an Acura hatch back car. This is better for working in the rain

In aluminum sheet metal, we can get about 2.6 feet of gutter per pound, so a 400 lb coil can produce about 1000 feet of gutter. Copper is gauged at 16oz, so it is 1 pound per square foot of sheet metal. This of course means that a 400 lb coil will only produce about 400 feet of gutter.

Copper cost us over 4 times as much as the pre-painted aluminum. I have never run steel through my machine, so I do not know what the price savings would be? I do know that when I go to recycle the old rusty gutters, steel is worth less than 1/20 of the value of scrap aluminum. So when considering a bid for steel gutters, realize that they are much more expensive than us, given the sheer profit margin.

This is an over head shot, showing the sunroof I now have with this new trailer. The center panel is the removable panel for the coils to be lowered in by fork lift. there are 4 screws that hold it in place.

I had to minimize the roof height in order to be able to reach the screws from the ground with out the need for a ladder. I can just barely reach them, but Tia is not able to reach. It also was the maximum height to get it in the workshop garage doors.