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Eagle strives to produce the same high-quality product whether the project is residential or commercial. "At first I thought we would have lower quality on the commercial side because of the volume, but that isn't the case," DeCaro said. "You can't do a half-assed, fast job on one set of tops and then do six kitchens that are perfect. It must be done right every time."
So where does the commercial world take the company? The Eagle has landed everywhere from $1 million hospital projects all across New Jersey and Six Flags Great Adventure Park to the headquarters of Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb. Each project has its own unique challenges and its own rewards.
One particularly challenging project was at American Standard's world headquarters in Piscataway, N.J., where Eagle handled some one-of-a-kind light sconces (see Figure 1). The sconces were placed along a 30-ft. length of corridor in the lobby and were made from 16 sheets of '-in Corian Venaro White with Cameo White batten strips. Each pair of sconces was approximately 4 ft. wide and 6 ft. high.
"The bends in the sconces are not just over a radius, but are two-dimensional, with the waves going both up and across the sheet," said DeCaro. "It required a lot of very intense thermoforming."
The experts at DuPont told him that thermoforming in two planes to get a vase-like look couldn't be done, but the project had already been accepted.
"We ended up making molds and experimenting with it until we got it to work," explained DeCaro. "We spent a week designing and preparing positive and negative molds to achieve precise bends. We had a small pile of debris, but we got the hang of it pretty quickly."
The Venaro veining was book-matched so it flowed from panel to panel and, because the sconces were backlit, any imperfection on either side would have shown, so it had to come together just right. In the end the project turned out wonderfully, in spite of some minor snafus in the installation.
"I think DuPont was as surprised as we were that it worked," said DeCaro. "It took about three weeks including install, but we finished a week ahead of schedule."
Another prominent commercial project Eagle tackled was the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J. They fabricated and installed eight tops into the clubhouse of this New York-New Jersey metro showcase track (see Figure 2).
