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Custom Mill Work, Bullet Resistant Barriers, and Inconspicuous Perfection
July 24, 2015
Millworkers don’t just slap up a die wall and call it a good day’s work. They are detail-oriented and take pride in work that is attractive without being over-the-top: It looks good and stays out of the way. Total Security Solutions is the same way when it comes to bulletproof barriers: Meticulous. Like mill shops, Total Security Solutions wants to be noticed by other tradesmen for high-quality design and installation—and then fade into the background for the customers of our clients.
According to Total Security Solutions CEO Jim Richards, “We know we’ve done a good job if people say ‘Wow, this isn’t what I expected!’ People have a visual picture of what they’re expecting [from a bullet resistant barrier]: something dark and ugly, like a county lockup. We are always looking for that Wow factor when we leave, where people are extremely excited: The barrier is bright, doesn’t distract visitors, and doesn’t get in the workers’ way.”
Bullet Resistant Mill Work is in Demand
As the economy continues to recover, we’re seeing increased demand for custom millwork, especially in non-residential building. An increasing number of these jobs—from retail build-outs to municipal projects, community centers, and private businesses—include a bullet resistant barrier, entryway, reception desk, or transaction area. Unfortunately, few mill shops also have the equipment and expertise to design, engineer, and fabricate bullet proof barrier systems.
The only way to ensure that these systems are secure, functional, and attractive is to design and fabricate them to tight tolerances. Even if a sloppily designed or fabricated system will still function well enough and look OK, it will almost certainly prove to be a huge pain to install. These materials can be next to impossible to scribe or trim on-site—which definitely eats into the mill shop’s margins as seemingly simple jobs drag on.
Custom Is Standard for TSS
This is why Total Security Solutions offers full customization on every job, designing and engineering each system from scratch with new measurements and a fresh consideration of where the barrier is going and what it needs to accomplish. For example, the work TSS did with Clark Energy in Kentucky was a custom retrofit to improve security at their payment centers. We worked around the existing build-out and millwork, extending the bulletproof glass across the entire counter without making it look dingy or forbidding (something that had been a major concern for the client). According to Holly Eades, Vice President for Finance at Clark Energy, “The estimates and drawings were accurate and timely. They showed up when they were supposed to, and everything was just neat as a pin. We were really, really tickled with their work.”
For a client in the hospital industry Total Security Solutions recently built a custom bulletproof podium that involved a substantial amount of millwork. The client wanted the end product to be large and secure enough for a speaker to take cover, but still blend inconspicuously with their other podiums and the rest of their public-event fixtures. The podium exterior was made of three-quarter-inch wood panels and lined with half-inch spall-free fiberglass, earning it a UL Level 3 rating—capable of stopping up to three or more shots from a variety of handguns, up to a .44 Magnum. Given specific instructions regarding veneer colors, routing, and decorative aluminum angles, Total Security Solutions was able to seamlessly blend with all of the existing millwork and fittings.
Support From Total Security Solutions Goes Above and Beyond
We don’t just offer a page of planning resources for mill shops and expect orders to come in. And we don’t just deliver good finished product and expect you to figure out the install on your own. We offer continuous support from the start of the design process through to the finished installation. Give us a call for a free design phone consultation and get things rolling on your next project. Your clients will be impressed with your work—and their customers will never notice a thing.
Company: 
Total Security Solutions Inc
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