Flexibility: small batches to pressed high volumes
Today’s lighting industry is fragmented into a few large companies and many smaller ones. At V and F Sheet Metal we have to be able to offer not just a large range of sheet metal manufacturing services but the most efficient methods for any given volume that a UK lighting company may need to complete their lighting projects. We can support you when you only want a few sheet metal components to demonstrate a potential new lighting scheme, regular batches of components from 10’s to 100’s or 1,000’s and through to 10,000’s with either CNC punching and CNC bending or dedicated press tooled power press work. You will find that we are happy to help at any stage of your design and development with help on the most appropriate tooling options to save you money even when considering surprising low volumes.
Sheet metal fabrication materials for Lighting components
As with all industries Lighting has its own particular requirements when it comes to the materials that are used. These may be special polished and pre-anodised reflector aluminium used to either concentrate a field of light into a focused beam or to disperse light over a large area with no obvious cut off shadow line. Having worked on many lighting projects we can help you with your selection of reflector material and have many standard reflector types in stock. We also use a range of pre-painted mild steels for the fabrication of 2D gear trays and T5 and T8 fluorescent battens from 0.5mm thick. These have the advantage of reducing the total project lead time and quite often the cost of each fabricated component. We always have a wide range of zintec in standard gauges which you can use for many components including gear boxes, chassis components, clamping brackets and as a good base material for external powder coated components e.g. under canopy light fittings.
CNC Tooling specific to the Lighting industry
Having worked with many UK based lighting companies since the early 1980s we have a vast range of tooling which is ideally suited to manufacturing sheet metal parts for this industry. Initially we worked with local companies near to us in Fareham, Portsmouth and Southampton in Hampshire but as time has gone on we now supply sheet metal fabrications to lighting companies right across the UK from the the south coast to Scotland. Our CNC tooling library includes tooling for lamp holders, electrical conduit knock outs, banana tools to cut out 2D circular gear trays, taptite form tooling to form self tapping threads to eliminate masking when powder coating as well as all the standard slot and holes sizes you could need. For a better idea please take a look at our CNC punch press tooling tables.
It’s not just having the right tooling but the experience of hundreds of lighting projects which enables us to offer you free advice when it comes to which sheet metal material to choose, the best type of corner joints to stop light leak, the most appropriate fixings etc, these all equate to a real added value service for you when starting out on the design of a new light fitting needing to employ sheet metal fabrications.
