Fort Yellowstone, one shingle at a time
How a conversation before the tool was cut changed the whole approach — and got a National Park Service roof shipped flat.
The job, in numbers
- 31,490shingles, one order
- 0.019inch material, 28 gauge pre-painted galvanized
- 450pieces per hour on the press
- 72press hours, run across nine days
- 26crates, shipped flat
- 0parts returned
The dates: purchase order 30 July 2025 · tooling completed mid-December · whole order shipped 26 January 2026. Material supplied by Prescott Metals of Biddeford, Maine.
The problem
Steve Clisset had a National Park Service contract to re-roof buildings at Fort Yellowstone, and a hard constraint that came with it: the new shingles had to look exactly like the historic metal shingles they were replacing. Not similar. The same raised pattern, on a roof the public and the Park Service would be looking at for the next century.
His plan when he came to us was reasonable and it was the wrong one. Dragon Armor would produce finished shingles, and Frontier would build a tool to stamp the raised design into them.
The conversation that changed it
We talked it through before anyone cut a tool. If Frontier stamped the raised design and cut the blank in the same operation, Dragon Armor could do the final folding on site, at Yellowstone, where the shingles were going anyway.
Which meant the shingles could ship flat.
That is the whole thing. A finished, folded metal shingle is an awkward object to crate and a coated surface is easy to mark in transit — and on this job the coating was the entire point, because it had to match a hundred-year-old roof. Shipping flat took that risk out, packed far more efficiently, and moved the folding to the people who were already standing on the roof.
In Steve’s words
Our connection goes back to when I was developing our snow stops, Dragon’s Teeth, for every type of roof application. We actually got connected through an email search. As I remember, the fact that we were in Erie, Colorado at the time and you were right next door in Frederick had much to do with developing the relationship. The ease of being able to drive five minutes to meet and discuss was a major plus.
That wasn’t all, though. Everyone in the organization had significant knowledge, substantial advice in the process to myself, who had a good idea but was really a small company. I never felt like your organization didn’t take my idea seriously. We did a small trial run of the product, and it was a successful proof of concept.
That initial experience set us up for what has become a significant contract for the National Park Service in the restoration of Fort Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park. We had to reproduce shingles such that our product, once installed, looked exactly like the existing metal shingles we were charged with removing. Again, the knowledge and advice of your organization was incredibly helpful in bringing this project forward in an efficient way.
We had envisioned needing to produce our finished shingles and then have Frontier Metal Stamping produce a tool to stamp the raised design to match the existing. After the first conversation we agreed that Frontier could not only do the raised design but could actually cut the template, and then we could finish the necessary folding to create finished shingles on site. This allowed the shingles to be shipped flat, minimizing the possibility of damage to the coating during shipping and increasing overall efficiency.
The result of this is a finished product that pretty much everyone is impressed with, from park staff, Park Service managers, the general contractor and the public at large.
What this job is actually an example of
Not stamping. Frontier stamps things every day and none of it is worth a page.
What was worth something here was one conversation, before a tool existed, in which somebody looked at the plan and said there is a better way to do this. It changed what got made, how it shipped, and who did the last operation. That conversation is free and we have it on every job, and it is the reason we would rather read your print before quoting it than after.
The other thing worth noticing: Steve came to us as a small company with a good idea and a small trial run. He was taken seriously, and the trial run became a National Park Service contract. We are not interested in only being useful to people who already have volume.
About Dragon Armor
Clisset LLC designs, fabricates and installs Dragon Armor metal shingles and other proprietary products for roofs, walls and interior finishes. Steve Clisset is the owner and lead designer.
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