Muza Sheet Metal Company debuts new product line

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

July 27, 2026

OSHKOSH – Commercial construction trends come and go, but Sam Blanck – president and owner of Muza Sheet Metal Company – said one design request had been steadily gaining momentum: wood-grain building exteriors that offer the appearance of natural wood with the longevity of metal.

Meeting that demand, however, he said, was anything but straightforward.

Blanck – who operates Muza with his brother, Carven – said it required nearly three years of research, product testing and evaluating competing finishes before Muza developed a wood-grain product that achieved the look customers wanted.

The effort, he said, was a natural extension of the company’s expertise in custom colors and finishes – though developing the new product pushed that knowledge further than ever before. 

“We do colored sheet metal, which we used to buy from other manufacturers,” he said. “But over the past three years or so, we’ve been bringing all that colored [work] in-house.”

Muza now offers 25 stock colors through its “Colors of Innovation” collection, Blanck said, supported by a fully automated coil farm designed to take products from field to fold. 

He said it’s all about making sure the company has its own colors and its own color chart, so Muza is now a manufacturer of its own colored steel. 

“That was a big step to get that up and running,” he said. “But we can now make all of our profile panels out of any colored steel that we have here.” 

Blanck said the added in-house capacity gives Muza greater flexibility in serving customers, while improving its ability to schedule production and meet project deadlines.

“Plus, now when we’re going in and working with architects and general contractors, we’re now selling Muza instead of ‘X, Y or Z’ products,” he said. “So, it was a great success for us to get that off the ground.”

Developing the Barrel Collection

With its Colors of Innovation lineup established – Tricia Yeager, vice-president of architectural products – said Muza turned its attention to another customer demand: architectural wood-grain metal finishes.

The result, Yeager said, was the Barrel Collection – a line inspired by the warmth and character of natural wood while offering the durability and performance of metal.

“As we were doing our research, we were running into issues where we didn’t think the wood grain looked that good and the quality of the wood grain wasn’t great,” he said. 

Yeager said Muza evaluated a variety of exterior mediums and panel options, but none achieved the appearance the company was seeking.

“We had a couple of hurdles to go through,” she said. “We were going through this exercise of trying to match things for a lot of the wood-grain projects that we were doing, and it just wasn’t working. So, we decided to create our own wood-grain finish.”

Yeager said she began researching potential partners and coating systems that could help Muza develop the right finish.

Feedback from architects, she said, indicated competing products, often made from extruded aluminum and sourced from Canada, were difficult to obtain, affected by tariffs and were not meeting expectations for appearance. 

Those things, Blanck said, became selling points for Muza because they are domestically manufactured and could create their own finishes. 

“There were parts and pieces to things that everybody was doing well,” he said. “It just wasn’t what we felt was giving the owners, architects and general contractors what they were looking for. So, Tricia and I worked with a company to develop our own pattern.”

Though the concept seemed simple, Blanck said bringing it to market required years of development and problem-solving. 

“We went through lots of trials and errors for probably three years,” he said. “But we weren’t willing to settle for anything less than perfection.”

Blanck said they eventually found an artist at another domestic company who worked with Muza to get everything just exactly what they needed to feel comfortable pitching the product to customers.  

The process, he said, involves applying a painted finish to steel or aluminum, with Muza creating and owning a unique pattern that cannot be used by competitors. 

The proprietary pattern, Blanck said, can be produced in a range of colors and variations, allowing Muza to offer finishes from lighter tones to darker shades while matching trim components. 

“We can then change it and put it on from a single-skin material onto a different solid material in the same pattern, which nobody in the industry in the United States has,” he said. “We are the only ones who have matching patterns in a single-skinned and in a composite material.” 

The collection now includes seven wood-grain color options and matching finishes across two mediums, a combination that Yeager said sets Muza apart in the market. 

“We can create almost anything that’s on the exterior of a building in these wood-grain colors,” she said. “It could be a soffit panel, or it could be a face panel. It just depends on what the architect wants to use our material on. But it is replicating real wood, and then they have zero maintenance with it because it is a metal product.” 

Beyond the product itself, Blanck said the custom finishes provide a practical advantage for Muza’s nearly 180 field employees, who can bring customers complete solutions and quickly respond to feedback from the job site.

Rolling out the barrel – both literally, figuratively

Blanck said Muza completed its first production run of the new finishes in October and officially introduced the Barrel Collection in April at the AIA convention in Appleton.

He said the company showcased the collection with product samples, color charts and other trade show materials – along with actual barrels incorporated into its booth display.

Blanck said the unique setup was designed to spark interest while creating a memorable introduction to the new product line.

To bring the concept to life, Yeager said Muza partnered with Fifth Ward Brewing Company in Oshkosh to create custom beer flavors packaged in cans featuring Barrel Collection wood-grain finishes, color charts and matching wood-grain chips.

“The cans looked like a barrel with our color on the outside, and then it had the chips on the side, so it was promotional, but it did go together, and it was nice,” she said. “It was a conversational piece for us because architects would walk up to the booth and ask about it… We wanted the release to be more of an experience, and then they would walk away remembering it better than other products or manufacturers.” 

Blanck said the company is taking a similar creative approach at the upcoming WHEA convention, where it will showcase the Barrel Collection through a partnership with Sprecher featuring root beer cans designed with Muza’s barrel-inspired finishes. 

According to muzasheetmetal.com, the collection’s seven finishes are Wild Cherry, Raspberry Ale, Brown Ale, Bourbon, Merlot, White Oak and Weathered Barrel. 

Blanck said Muza’s color selection was guided by feedback from architects, including the types of wood-grain finishes they wanted, the tones they preferred and how the materials would be used in projects. 

“We wanted to give a full offering, which I think we did a great job with,” he said. “We went from a light tan, and it goes to a darker color… We have received great responses on all the different colors so far.”

Just the beginning

Yeager said Muza is extending its wood-grain expertise beyond exterior applications with a new interior product line focused on linear metal ceilings.

She said the company is in the testing phase and expects to roll out the product once performance standards are met.

“It’s going to take a little bit longer,” she said. “We were getting kind of pushed because the architects liked this wood grain in the Barrel Collection so much, they wanted us to do more with it. There are a lot of schools and healthcare facilities out there that welcome a lot of people through their doors. They want the inside to be as welcoming as the exterior, and wood grains give that soft, welcoming feel.”

Blanck said the new product line could be introduced by the end of 2026 or early 2027 

“We’re hoping it’ll be by the end of this year,” he said. “But for sure sometime in the first quarter of 2027.”

Blanck said the interior line will build on Muza’s existing exterior panel systems, though the company is taking a measured approach by launching with one system first and expanding once it has proven successful.

“I think that is very attainable,” he said. “Then we can look at doing more. We just don’t want our vision getting too big and [us] trying to take on too much at once, because there’s a lot there.”

As Muza looks toward future product development, Blanck said the company is also building on a strong foundation of safety and operational excellence – recently surpassing one million work hours without a lost-time injury.

“That is due to the commitment of our employees who are always looking out for each other and treating everyone like they’re a member of their family,” he said. “It’s a big deal for us because we want to make sure that every one of our people goes home to their families at the end of every day.”

The Business News will check back in with Muza Sheet Metal Company following the launch of its new interior product line.