Whether you need a unique metal product for your project or a spare part for your old machinery, custom metal fabrication can be your one-stop solution.
It frequently happens that a typical metal shop cannot always provide you with the exact metal products you need for your project. So very often, you end up wasting money buying products that hardly serve your purpose. In this situation, custom metal fabricators or companies that offer metal fabrication services can help you with the exact products you want. Moreover, you can get high-quality products at a very competitive price as well.
What Is Custom Metal Fabrication?
In its simplest terms, custom metal fabrication is the process of making any metal object (e.g. panels, mailboxes, air conditioning ducts, etc.) or parts of any big machinery from raw metal materials (mostly from sheet metal).
For example, if any part of your heavy machinery needs to be made or replaced, you can do that through custom metal fabrication. You can take a metal sheet and then transform it into your desired end product by cutting, folding, shaping, assembling, etc.
Process of Custom Metal Fabrication
Whether you do it yourself or with the help of any metal fabrication company, you may need to follow some or all of the below steps of custom metal fabrication. It requires advanced methods and heavy machinery.
- Cutting
Generally, sheet metal is used for custom metal fabrication purposes. So, the first step is to cut the sheet metal according to your product design or need. From this step starts the journey to transform sheet metal into your desired metal products or parts. For cutting precision, you can follow modern methods like laser cutting, plasma arc cutting, waterjet cutting, etc.
- Folding
Inevitably, all metal products or parts have bends or angles. In this step, you bend the metal piece into the desired shape. You can do that by using press brakes and folding machines. Press brake helps you get the angles you need to make the product. However, hammering is another way to make necessary bends.
- Welding
When you have two or more small metal parts to join together to form a shape, welding comes into play. Welding is an integral part of custom metal fabrication that bonds two separate pieces of metal through heat and pressure. There are a few popular welding procedures, including Arc Welding, MIG welding, Flux Cored Arc Welding, etc. Based on your product need, you can choose your one.
- Machining
Machining is a shaping process where you remove unwanted parts to create your desired form. It involves drilling, turning, milling, etc.
Drilling is to cut holes in the material as necessary whereas turning is a process where a lathe is used to rotate the material to remove metal along the diameter. For a robust turning process, a CNC turning machine is used. Again, milling can be considered as the finishing process where you need to use multi-point cutting tools to turn the material into the exact shape you want. Though this can be done manually, a CNC milling machine can become very handy for that.
- Punching
As simple as it sounds, punching is the process of making holes in the metal surface. The punch machine uses force to make holes exactly where you want and, at the same time, keeps other parts fully secure and untouched. Punching is common in almost all kinds of metal fabrication works. Depending on your work nature, you can use a small manual punch press or a heavy complex one.
- Sharing
It is the step where long straight cuts are made on the metal sheet. The process is quite simple and involves two tools; one above the metal sheet and another below it. Now the upper one puts huge pressure on the metal sheet onto the stationary lower one and cuts. Shearing is a great way to cut smaller-length metals.
- Stamping
When you intend to make an indentation on metal, stamping is the process that allows you to do that. It is quite similar to punching. But it doesn’t create holes. On the contrary, it just raises the metal surface. Stamping is necessary to form shapes, letters, or images on a metal sheet or products. It can be done by either mechanical or hydraulic stamping presses.
Benefits of Custom Metal Fabrication
Custom metal fabrication comes with tons of incredible benefits that no typical metal shop can offer you. Let&rsquo briefly discuss a few of them in the following.
You can get exactly what you want
Following the above-mentioned process, you or your metal fabricators can produce exactly what end-products are needed for your project. It gives you the freedom to turn your imagination and creativity into reality.
Custom metal fabrication is cost-effective
If you get custom metal fabrication services from metal fabrication companies, you can save tons of money. They can make you all types of customized metal products or parts at amazingly competitive prices. So, choosing a good metal fabrication company is always a great way to save your hard-earned money.
You get high-quality end-products
Custom metal fabricators use advanced technology and methods to produce your desired products. So, they can give you high-quality end-products that you can never get from anywhere else. Moreover, the entire process is vigorous and speedy so you can get your product in the quickest possible time.
We hope that you’ve got an overall understanding of custom metal fabrication that allows you to fix any of your old machinery and keep it functional for years to come. At the same time, it enables you to produce any new metal objects or parts you need for your ongoing project. All you need is to reach out to great metal fabricators or companies that offer custom metal fabrication services and tell them what you have in mind.
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