It all started with an 18” T-rex dinosaur made out of 1/4” 304 Stainless Steel. That was just for fun.

Then company founder Ben Benton Sr. saw the little T-rex in the office. And while talking to his son and current company owner, Ben Benton Jr, the discussion turned to building a big dinosaur to put in front of the fabrication shop. That's how the big dinosaur project began

But then the 2008/2009 economic slump hit, and things had slowed down considerably. Ben Jr and his father were walking through the shop full of large Dino parts, and Ben Sr exclaimed, "that's USELESS!" So Ben Jr named the dinosaur "USELESS" at that point.

Despite the recession, the project continued. In part, it continued to give the shop some work during the darkest days of the recession so they wouldn't have to let people go. But it was also a vision and a challenging project that would demonstrate the creativity and quality workmanship available at Benton and Sons Fabrication.

The small dino was scaled up 12 times, from 18 inches to 18 feet tall. Using a CAD design program, more than 200 pieces were efficiently laid out on 34 different sheets of 1/8” 5052 aluminum, then sent over to the TRUMPF 6000 Watt Laser to be precision laser cut.

To account for the larger scale, each piece also had to be sized up to 3” thick. So each piece was made with an identical top and bottom and then a band was formed around each one. Each band was perfectly-fitted per piece by the press break operators. After that each piece was welded together with the band to create the 3" thickness.

After all of the individual dinosaur pieces were welded, the welders/assemblers put the dinosaur together like a puzzle and welded it all together. Then it was carefully moved out front for installation near the “Benton and Sons Fabrication” sign.

Since that time, nearly every engineer, project director, CEO, and walk-in customer who have visited Benton and Sons Fabrication have said that the dinosaur was “AWESOME”. Even moms and dads driving by with their kids would stop to say how “AWESOME” the dinosaur was! So the dinosaur's name was changed from “Useless” to “AWESOME”, a name that aptly describes this 30 foot long prehistoric re-creation. Even Ben Sr now says that it's “AWESOME!”

So if your next project requires all around “Awesome” then give us a call!