The process of taking a thin flat sheet of metal and then bending it, stamping it, stretching it, curving it punching holes in it and shaping it using heat, pressure and heavy machinery is one of the most fascinating and important parts of the modern manufacturing process.
A lot of the products we use and love for the past few decades and tend to take for granted have sheet metal fabricators to thank for their existence. All of these products began their life as thin sheets of various metals of various gauges or even huge rolls of the material. Once they undergo the various processes that very few end users ever they are magically transformed into everyday objects that we all use.
The technology sheet metal fabricators use has also changed beyond recognition over the past few decades and today you are no longer likely to find open fires and tongs in a steel working unit but are more likely to find computerized machines for most processes that go into metal work like cutting, welding and stamping shapes.
These days parts are shaped not using stamping machines that essentially batter the sheet metal into shape by slamming into it with a huge multi ton weight but with a process called hydro-forming which is much less stressful to the metals and results in tougher stronger products. Cutting is also now done with lasers and high pressure water jets rather than the old diamond coated blades of yore with the advantages of better, more precise cuts, better finish and less wear and tear on the raw materials as well as the cutting machines themselves.
But even with all this high technology highly skilled human beings are still needed in all metal working units to access the most hard to reach welding points that no computerized mechanical welding machine can reach and to shape double or multiple curvature parts that cannot be done except with the skill of the human eye and the human hand. The best sheet metal fabricators are the ones that combine the best of modern technology combined with the most skillful metal workers who can still do wonders with sheet metal that no machine today can.
Popular Articles
-
Steel finds its extensive usage in almost all fields - houses, industries, factories, mining, drilling, bridges, constructions and agricult...
-
The modern use of laser welding is rooted in the scientific discovery of the first laser in the 1960s, when the effects of an amplified ligh...
-
With the recent rise in the popularity of fabrication jobs all over the world, there has been an increase in the number of companies offeri...
-
Welding Electrodes uses an arc that conducts the current through two pieces of work piece which are fused together. In shielded metal arc w...
-
In industrial context, welding refers to a fabrication process that joins materials such as metals and thermoplastics, by causing coalescenc...
-
Baltimore, Maryland – The US-European industrial trade portal ForeignTRADEX.com announced the release of its new and improved Metal Fabricat...
-
Almost all modern day metal fabrication falls into two categories. There is fully automated and semi automated systems. There are some old ...
-
As most members of the Gases and Welding Distributors Association know, the association offers a variety of training options. However, not e...
-
Whenever looking for a company that sells welding supplies we need to make sure that the quality of the products we are buying is beyond an...
-
Traditionally companies engaged in sheet metal cutting have used high-powered CO2 laser systems to do the cutting. A growing relative newco...
0 comments: