laser cutting Archives - Page 6 of 6 -

Sheet metal projects November 2013

Saturday, November 23rd, 2013

Just 3 examples of the hundreds of sheet metal projects we have been manufacturing this month in Fareham, Hampshire.

CNC punched pre-anodised aluminium reflector material

Lighting reflector CNC punched blanks

We have CNC punched out a range of small lighting reflectors from 0.4mm thick pre-anodised alanod reflector aluminium. The material comes with a peelable plastic film which we keep on the material throughout the manufacturing process to maintain a clean and scratch free surface on the presentation side of the material. With all reflector materials whether they are highly polished such as Miro4 or satin as this material they can show finger marks so easily so they have to be handled very carefully. The reflectors were CNC punched on our slower punch press, the Trumpf 200. This is perfect for this process as the material is so thin and delicate that the slower gentle punching suits the sheet metal nest once it has become fragile towards the end of the program. You can see that the material yield is good on the sheet whilst still maintaining a practical program in production.

Aluminium assemblies MiG welded together

Aluminium MiG welded chassis assemblies

Here we have manufactured a batch of aluminium chassis assemblies from 3mm 1050a aluminium alloy. The manufacturing techniques have included CNC punching, edge deburring, bush insertion, sheet rolling, CNC bending, aluminium MiG welding and cleaning up. These welded fabrications are then powder coated and used within the assembly of a scientific instrument.

Zintec chassis parts laser cut and CNC bent

Zintec folded sheet metal end plates

These Zintec (zinc coated mild steel) end plates have been manufactured using laser cutting and CNC bending techniques. These parts are among the first sheet metal components that we have manufactured on our new Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser machine. The parts were laser cut with compressed air as the assist gas which removed the need to deburr the cut edges that would have been done under CNC punching. The final finished parts were powder coated and then used in a pump assembly for the brewery industry.

Go an idea that you may want to have manufactured in sheet metal or need a bit of advice?

Give us a call or send an email and our engineering team will take a look for for you.

Laser cutting sheet metal work

Monday, November 18th, 2013

Laser cutting 2mm thick mild steel

We are really pleased to be able to show off our new Trumpf 3030 fiber laser cutter. This small part was cut using oxygen to produce a perfect edge cut around the internal holes and the outer profile. The parts were then folded, countersunk and barrel deburred before being zinc plated and colour passivated. The speed and edge quality we are getting is better than the CNC punching method we were using before and any laser cutting oxide surface is removed in the acid of the zinc plating process.

Fast Tube by Casper

If you have a laser cutting sheet metal project and want us to take a look at it for you please just ask, call us on 01489 577786 or email sales@vandf.co.uk

For more information on laser cutting with a Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser please follow the link to our plant web page.

Laser cutting now offered at V and F Sheet Metal

Monday, November 11th, 2013

Laser cutting sheet metal

V and F Sheet Metal are very proud and excited to announce that we now have a brand new laser cutting service in house here in Fareham, Hampshire. We are offering this service to our existing customers and for new work to enable us to offer a quicker lead time on parts and to improve part quality. Using a Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser we will be able to cut a range of materials including mild steel, stainless steel, zintec and galvanised coated steel, aluminium alloys, copper and brass. This investment in extended cutting ability and material thicknesses has been planned for a long time and has been enabled with the extra factory space we now have. Over the next few weeks we will be able to test out all the laser cutting features of our new machine and I will be posting examples of the work we are producing. Early tests show a perfect cut on thin gauges of metal even when using compressed air as the assist gas. We went for a fiber laser over a CO2 laser as it is cheaper to run and can cut quicker on thin sheet metal gauges (up to 4mm). The fibre laser can still cut up to 20mm thick but currently we will be limiting ourselves to thinner work while we get used to the machine.

Laser cutting examples

Here are some typical examples of laser cut sheet metal parts kindly supplied to us by Trumpf UK. You can see here how complex some geometries can be in a range of material thicknesses and yet they are cut with ease on the laser cutter. Using nitrogen, oxygen or compressed air we can cater for all material and offer parts priced according to suit their final use. More information will be posted to laser cutting gallery pages and a specific plant page on laser cutting over the following weeks as we build up a larger volume of work examples to demonstrate the machines cutting capability.

Laser cutting v CNC punching

Using laser cutting for some parts will enable us to remove the need for special tooling. This will be a great advantage for small volume items of prototypes. There will always be a place for CNC punching in our manufacturing plant with its ability to produce forms in components such as ventilation louvres, dimples, plunged hole. CNC punching is also very good at producing large volumes of holes with cluster tools very quickly. Basically we now have the best of both worlds with our Trumpf CNC punch presses and Trumpf laser cutter and look forward to offer a full range of services to our customers.

Laser cutting with a Trumpf 3030 Fiber

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

Laser cutting with a Trumpf 3030 Fiber

Laser cutting sheet metal profiles is so flexible with a Trumpf fiber laser cutting metal materials from the thinnest sheet up to 20mm thick mild steel. The picture here shows perfectly what we mean with the fiber laser cutting a thin gauge copper which is almost impossible on a CO2 laser cutter. Fitted with a load / unload pallet changing table the productivity of the machine is increased further making it a great production addition to our Fareham manufacturing factory sitting perfectly along side our Trumpf 200 and Trumpf 3000 CNC punch presses.

Why fiber not CO2 laser

If we were just cutting thick sheet and heavy plate all the time in our factory we would have chosen to use a CO2 laser cutting system but as we normally serve customers with thinner sheet metal components and a range of ferrous and non ferrous materials including copper and brass fiber was the obvious way for us to go. The fiber laser being quicker on thin gauges and cheaper to run will enable us to offer the greatest quality part at an economical price.

The fiber laser generator

The heart of the fiber laser is shown here and produces 3KW of power which travels down a fiber cable and directed onto the sheet metal through a nozzle and assisted by either nitrogen, oxygen or compressed air gasses. Not only is the fiber laser very flexible in the range of material types and thicknesses it can cut but its the fastest laser cutting method available for thin gauge sheet metal.

Preparation for laser cutting gas storage area

Monday, October 28th, 2013

Gas storage area prepared waiting for installation

Now the floor inside is ready to take our new Trumpf 3030 fibre laser cutter we have to prepare an area for the gas storage. These posts will act as a protective barrier to guard the cage that will hold Nitrogen and Oxygen bottles. Nitrogen and Oxygen are used as assist gases when cutting sheet metals and plate with a laser cutter.

Painting protective posts ready for gas installation

Initially we will start with gas bottle packs to see how much gas we use. Once we have a better idea we may transfer to bulk storage containers for liquid Nitrogen an Oxygen. Our Trumpf 3030 can also cut with compressed air giving us the greatest flexibility to select the right cutting method for you work at the most competitive price.

Floor almost ready for Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser

Friday, October 25th, 2013

Final floated floor now drying

The floor has now been floated nice and smooth and back up to the original level of the existing factory floor. The green look is only the final dampness coming out of the floor and will be gone within a few days.

Dry flooring waiting to be painted

Once the floor has completely dried out we will be ready for a sealing coat of paint. We are nearly there now and then it will be time for the arrival of the Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser, can’t wait.

New concrete flooring back in and ready for floating

Thursday, October 24th, 2013

Slowly getting there

Now finally we can see the concrete going back in. The concrete has been poured in and moved around to fill all the opening and reduce the chances of voids in the final floor. At this stage it is important to ensure all the reinforcing bars are encased in concrete to produce one solid floor that is locked into the existing factory floor area.

Top finish starting

Th new concrete floor has to be flat ready for the arrival of our new Trumpf 3030 laser cutter on 22nd October. The floor is rolled and then power floated to produce a smooth even surface in line with the existing factory floor.

Main concrete level now finished

The floor ready for power floating. Power floating can begin once it has dried out more and ready to walk on, now the wait begins.

New flooring area taking shape for Trumpf 3030 laser

Monday, October 21st, 2013

At last, stopped digging down now building up

It’s good to finally see some building going on and not destruction! Now things seems to be moving faster and we can see what is really happening. The hard core was soon filled in and pressed down hard ready for the next stages, laying a membrane sheet and reinforcing steel mesh right across the floor area.

Tie bars in place

All the holes drilled in the side walls of the existing floor had reinforced steel bar pushed into place which could then be tied into the new reinforcing steel mesh. The 2 layers of reinforced steel mesh were kept apart from each other with spacers to prevent the mesh being forced to the bottom of the cutout with the weight of the concrete.

Floor area ready for the concrete mix

The final floor is now ready to have concrete poured into place. We must be in the final leg now, surely!

Building works get going at a pace ready for a new Trumpf 3030 fiber laser

Monday, October 14th, 2013

The work progresses

Once the pecker had manged to break up all the old concrete floor it was time to remove all the waste broken concrete and steel reinforcing bars. The small digger soon made short work of the task and the floor was then cleared right down to the base ground level. Now all the work could be put into building up a new floor rather than taking away the old shallow floor.

Floor area is now at the correct depth for the Trumpf laser

Once all the old flooring material had been removed we could get the base floor leveled off and compacted down to create a hard based to build the new flooring layers onto.

Drilling tie bar holes

So that the new flooring pad, once laid in position, wasn’t just a free floating island it was necessary to drill into the side walls of the existing concrete and push reinforced steel bars in place. These steel bars could then be tied into the reinforcing mesh that would be laid into the new floor giving a more stable floor pad. AS with all these jobs in was slow going but when you are investing a lot in a new laser cutting machine the job has to be done properly.

V and F Sheet Metal start preparation for a new Laser Cutter

Thursday, October 10th, 2013

Existing floor area before preparation for the laser cutter

So this is where our new Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser cutter is going to go. The good news is that when we moved factory from all our small units in Mitchell Close to one building in Brunel Way we knew a laser cutter would be on the cards so we planned in the space to allow us to install one. The bad news was that the flooring wasn’t quite deep enough to take the machine so we have had to take the decision to reinforce the area that the new laser cutter will sit on. The laser cutter will sit next to our 2 Trumpf CNC punch presses enabling us to keep all sheet metal profile processing together. This should allow us to be more efficient in our material handling.

Cutting out concrete floor pad area

With help from Trumpf UK, our laser machine, CNC punch press and CNC press brake supplier, we surveyed the area and investigated several machine configurations before mapping out the size and position of floor that would need to be reinforced. After marking out the concrete floor it was cut out surprisingly accurately with disk cutters. The process was noisy (luckily we are used to that so it was ear defenders on again) and time consuming but it did mean we would get a good edge finish eventually.

Digging out the existing concrete

Once the floor area was cut out to the defined size it had to be broken up. The machine for this was the pecker which was used to break away the surface of the concrete from the middle of the floor back out to the sawed edges. We thought the disk cutting was noisy but this was another level but the builders got there in the end. Slow work but within a day they had cleared out all the old concrete and we were the proud owners of a rectangular hole in the ground!

Get a Quote