CNC bending stainless steel housings
Folded stainless steel sheet metal housings, some of the options available to you.
When you are designing sheet metal housings it’s always worth thinking about the manufacturing processes in advance. Whether the housing is made from a single piece of metal or many sub-parts joined together time spent early on will save money in the long run.
We may be looking at laser cutting v CNC punching to produce the housing blanks. Depending on the thickness of the material required and the complexity of the design one way or the other will seem the best route to take. Some feature may also immediately suggest a certain blank production method, for example if the housing has formed dimples or plunged and tapped threads then CNC punching will be the best manufacturing method. If however the housing has a company logo cut into it or a series of curved profiles laser cutting may be the more efficient method of production. We will always look at your design and select the most appropriate method and keep you in the loop at the quoting stage.
Stainless steel housings
There are similar considerations to be made when it comes to folding sheet metal housings. Not only the physical size and tonnage required to fold the angles but the complexity of the design and the ease with which the folds can be produced. This certainly needs experience, we have had many a good design sent to us to find that’s it’s impossible to fold from 1 piece of metal. A quick call or e-mail at an early stage of development will save time in the long run especially if we are using off the shelf tooling.
These folded stainless steel sheet metal housings have been developed in conjunction with the customer to enable the most efficient method of production. The more parts that have to be assembled together more thought has to be given to alignment and tolerance build up. This is where a useful piece of software such as our 3D Radan CAD/CAM software comes in handy.
Stainless steel housings
Like so much in sheet metal work it can look easy until you come to translating your designs to physical components. We are always here to help you with your ideas and point you in the right direction when it comes to tooling and material selection.
For more examples of recent sheet metal projects why not take a look at our Pinterest boards.
We are always happy to receive your drawings to review.