Some kids have both the fortitude and the ability at a young age to know and pursue what they want to do when they grow up. That’s Daniel Silva’s fortunate story. He knew he wanted to be a welder, pursued that vocation, and now his company, DS Welding, Inc., is doing all the big steel fabrication and welding on InConcert Sierra’s (ICS) massive concert hall/black box/conference center project.
Daniel was born in Nevada County and attended Bear River High School, where he took welding and shop classes. His uncle was a welder, so after watching him, Daniel knew what he wanted to do from a young age. He participated in Ag Mechanics classes in high school and sold a lot of his welding work at the county fair.
His first job, starting at 15 years old, was at FeatherLite Trailers as a welder and mechanic. After working at FeatherLite for nine years, Daniel then worked at ACE Welding for four years as a welder. He then decided to do his own thing and started DS Welding and Fabrication in 2016; he incorporated as DS Welding Inc. last year. Initially, he worked from home, but as his business grew, he needed to hire others. Now he has six full-time employees.
His company works on big structural steel projects, but also gates and ornamental awnings (check out Sierra Moon in Auburn). He has created and installed all the steel work on the Mill Street Mall project (planter boxes, benches), the shade areas at McKnight Crossing (near Target), and commercial work like ADA railings at hospitals and businesses.
For ICS, Daniel is doing all of the steel in the concert hall. This includes fabricating 26 forty-foot tall steel columns and 13 seventy-foot long web trusses to set on top of the columns to support the roof. Each truss weighs 8,000 pounds. A 250-ton crane picks up each of the 13 trusses and sets each one in saddles at the top of two opposite columns. The trusses are temporarily bolted, then permanently welded in place. The columns are now all in place and the installation of the web trusses is scheduled to begin the week of August 5 th.
Daniel is also doing the catwalk in the black box theater. It will be built on the ground, then hoisted and bolted to the theater’s wooden roof trusses. The catwalk will be constructed with a floor grating and painted black so that it won’t be visually obvious. Its purpose is to allow all lighting to be easily hung from it and adjusted for each show, rather than having to use a scissor-lift to make adjustments every time.
Additionally, he fabricated the long horizontal steel beams in the conference center to allow opening up of the room by taking out two vertical columns in the center of the room. He’s also making all of the railings and other metal work in ICS’s building.
His company does a lot of work in Tahoe for new housing developments. He recently put 120,000 pounds of steel in one house for an open beam look under the roof. He sees his business growing and is looking to build his own larger building to accommodate a larger business.
Daniel is very involved with his family and has two little ones, six and eight years old, who love coming to his shop. He enjoys snowmobiling, has a pilot’s license (he owns a Piper Turbo Aero and flies the family places for short jaunts), and enjoys working on his own house—he has built a metal deck (of course!) and other decorative and functional steel items.
Daniel believes he is in the right place, in the right business, and says that “structural steel is where it’s at” for all kinds of building projects. Indeed, he certainly is in the right business and place to create and install all of the steel needs for ICS’s big project, which couldn’t be completed without the work and talent of his company. Check out DS Welding’s website at www.dsweldingfabrication.com.
If you would like to see InConcert Sierra’s new building, you can sign up for a tour at www.inconcertsierra.org/crown-point-project/take-a-tour.
Hindi Greenberg is the president of the board of InConcert Sierra and is very involved in Nevada County’s arts community.