To people outside of the world of fabrication, what commercial fabricators do can come across as mysterious. However, metal can only be fabricated in so many ways. Here are six techniques that commercial fabricators use whenever they work:
- Cutting: This is the most obvious of the techniques. In order to fabricate metal into desired products, it must first be cut into usable pieces.
- Shearing: Shearing achieves a similar result as cutting but is a bit different. It creates a specific kind of edge to the cut metal and is most often used to trim down excess metal from an already cut edge.
- Stamping: This is another technique where the metal is cut, but the emphasis is on the shape of the metal when cut. It is used to stamp out pieces when a specific part needs to be raised or impressed. One example is metal stamped coins, which feature images and text that appear when stamped.
- Folding: Folding is used to create an angle within the metal.
- Welding: Welding can accomplish the same effect as bending, where instead of one piece of metal being bent to a certain degree, two pieces of metal are welded to create that same angle. Welding is the process of combining the pieces of metal together using heat.
- Casting: For more complex pieces, casting can be used instead of the above techniques. Rather than manipulating metal into a certain shape, casting is the process of pouring molten metal into a mold and letting it harden.
Commercial fabricators have many tools to use when working with metal. Whatever job you need done, commercial fabricators should have the tools and techniques to achieve it.
