Blog - Page 12 of 22 -

Stainless steel folded channels

Thursday, September 10th, 2015

Stainless steel channels

Here’s another project that caught my eye last week and I thought it would be good to share it. These parts have all been manufactured from 2mm thick 304 stainless steel sheet. They have been laser cut as flat blanks from standard sheet sizes and all nested together to get the best sheet utilisation. Being laser cut with our Trumpf 3030 fibre laser and using nitrogen as the cutting assist gas they were bright and clean on all the laser cut edges and holes and so they did not need any edge deburring. The laser cut blanks were then folded up to the sizes pre-determined on our 3D Radan sheet metal models on our brand new Safan e-brake CNC press brake. The final operation was to press in stainless steel hank bushes using both our fly presses and our Haeger bush inserter press. It’s surprising just how mush equipment is needed to produce relatively simple sheet metal work when you want to do the job properly. You might have a new project that you are working on needing stainless steel channels or angle or you might want to look again at pricing an existing project. Please give us a call on 01489 577786 or e-mail us on sales@vandf.co.uk with your drawings and we will be happy to help.

Sheet metal brackets

Monday, September 7th, 2015

Sheet metal brackets

6mm thick mild steel brackets laser cut and folded within the same day at our manufacturing factory in Fareham, Hampshire. Using our Safan 100 ton e-Brake CNC press brake these 6mm brackets were easily folded up with standard tooling. The parts were programmed using Radan software straight from our customers solid works 3D models.

Once these sample brackets have been approved we will be moving into batch production during the autumn of 2015.

Laser cutting sheet metal work

Thursday, August 27th, 2015

Laser cutting steel sheet metal work

CNC punching is so flexible in being able to produce complex shapes in a range of sheet metal work. Being able to form dimples, louvre, self tapping forms etc is essential which is why we have 2 CNC punch presses to cover those needs but sometimes sheet metal components profile are so complex with compound curves that laser cutting is the only real option available. Luckily for us we have a Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser which enables us to laser cut very complex sheet metal work with perfect profiled edges. The ability to fill a sheet of metal completely without any clamping areas is also a great advantage especially when it’s an expensive material.

Easy programming of the Safan e-brake CNC punch press reduces set up times

Monday, August 24th, 2015

CNC programming on a Safan e-Brake

The ability to quickly create a CNC bending program from scratch in either 2D profile or 3D is a real strength of the Safan e-Brake CNC press brake. We have now managed to create several hundred programs in just a couple of months. With all tooling available in a standard library and a database of all material bent, gauges and bending calculation for bend spring back correction the machine is a joy to use. We have set up the machine to run on windows 7 and log straight onto our network so there is no time wasted when the machine is turned on in the morning, it’s straight to production.

CNC press brake progamming

Looking for a company who can program and bend up your sheet metal work projects up to 3M long and with 100 tons force all in one machine then please give us a try. With an experienced manufacturing team to advise you on your designs and to provide samples where needed V and F Sheet Metal are keen to be your partner on future sheet metal projects.

CNC press brake tooling gets organised

Thursday, August 20th, 2015

CNC press brake tooling rack

Sometimes it’s just nice to take the time out of a busy schedule and get organised. We had some much new press brake tooling come with our new Safan e-Brake that it was a great opportunity to sort ourselves out and make up a trolley rack with all the tooling stored safely together. Having the same Trumpf style tooling on both our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake bending machines and our new Safan e-Brake bending machine means we can move the tooling direct to whichever bending machine is being set up.

Follow the links to both of the CNC bending machine to see their capabilities and lots of work examples.

Sheet metal housings folded with new CNC press brake

Monday, August 10th, 2015

Sheet metal housings folded with new CNC press brake

Safan e-Brake 3M CNC press brake

It’s great to see our new CNC press brake making it’s presence felt with a project which needed long housings to be bent very accurately. These housings have been CNC punched from 2mm thick zintec with an array of ventilation louvre forms on our Trumpf 3000R CNC punch press. Some sections of these housings have been formed into curves with a multi-bend sequence. The Safan CNC press brake has been a great asset to our workshop since it’s installation in June 2015 and as time goes by and we create more programs for it we will see production speed up on repeat batch work.

(Quick update, the Safan e-brake is still going strong in 2021 and has been perfect for the type of metal housings and brackets we often manufacture for our customers).

Perhaps you have a sheet metal housing that you purchase and would like us to take a look for you and see if we can improve the design or reduce your costs. Please give us a call on 01489 577786 or send us your drawings and we will be happy to help you.

Aluminium sheet metal enclosures manufactured in the UK

Wednesday, August 5th, 2015

Aluminium sheet metal enclosures

Aluminium sheet metal enclosures

These aluminium enclosures were laser cut and then folded up from 1.5mm 5251 aluminium alloy sheet. All the details for the exact blank size and hole positions were calculated using the latest Radan sheet metal software from the initial 3D model, 2D parts and the final CNC laser nest lay out. All the files being saved off line on our server before being called down to the specific machines in production when required. These enclosure parts had their corners TiG seam welded up and then cleaned of smooth before being powder coated.

Batch sizes for these particular enclosures are 25. We manufacture some special enclosures in small volumes and others up to many hundreds at a time.

The final finished enclosure housings and front panels are used for LED display panels.

You may want to get some ideas from past sheet metal projects. We have hundreds of examples of sheet metal enclosures on our Pinterest Boards.

If you have a sheet metal enclosure project please contact us and we would be happy to work with you to get the best price and product. Please send STEP, SAT, DXF, DWG or PDF drawings and CAD data and we will do the rest.

Sheet metal work supplier August 2015

Tuesday, August 4th, 2015

CNC bending sheet metal work

Now we have had our new Safan e-Brake in production for a couple of months we can already see the advantages of its quiet, quick no nonsense approach to folding sheet metal work. We have got to grips with the CNC programming system really quickly and are already seeing some common parts repeating with stored CNC programs coming in very handy. The ability to swap jobs up to 1M long between the Safan and our 2 Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes will be really useful at busy times to help reduce production bottle necks. These mild steel housings were one of the first major bending projects to come off the new CNC press brake but we have already folded stainless steel, aluminium and pre-painted mild steel parts. We are certainly looking forward to a busy month in August.

Mild steel formed sections

These mild steel formed sections are part of a series of items manufactured for heater air curtain units. They have been laser cut and then folded up on our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes using a multi-bend programming technique to create the curved sections out of a series of flats. We have produced these before but this time the volume was bigger and some design changes were made which is easy to accommodate with these machines as the old CNC program is saved on the system server and easily modified ready for the latest batch of parts. We can use this to save the cost of special form tools on a host of material types and gauges. Please give us a call and we will be happy to look at your sheet metal work projects and see if this technique can help you.

Folded sheet metal chassis housings

Sheet metal chassis housings such as these are typical of the work that V and F Sheet Metal make on a regular basis. These chassis were made from zintec coated mild steel but they could just as well have been made from aluminium alloys or stainless steel. Volumes from just a few off samples to many hundreds in a batch are quite typical for us and with our CNC punching, CNC laser cutting and range of CNC press brakes anything from the simplest to the most complex parts can be taken on for you.

For more information on sheet metal work and how it’s made please take a look at this page.

For any of your sheet metal work project needs please give us a call on 01489 57786 or e-mail us your drawings at sales@vandf.co.uk and we will be happy to take a look for you.

New CNC press brake tooling speeds up production times

Monday, July 27th, 2015

Safan CNC press brake tooling up to 3M long

With the installation of a new CNC press brake, the Safan e-Brake, we had to make a decision on which tooling system to go for. We wanted the tooling to be able to be used on both the new Safan press brake and our 2 existing Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes. The Trumpf tooling system was available on the new Safan so it was the best tooling to go for. This decision has immediately given us more tooling options across all 3 machines and the ability to swap work around when production pressures might need it without any impact on the component design or blank cut size. You can see the back stop design enables us to fold difficult shapes where a flat back stop end would not be suitable.

Safe edge bend tooling

Having 3M worth of safe edge (dutch fold) tooling enables us to produce bend and crushed features in 2 simple operations all built into one simple to set tooling system. The sheet metal component is simple bent into a V form on the top part of the tooling and then the V is flatten right down onto the sheet surface in the open section of tooling below in 2 bend cycles.

Automatic top tool clamping

The new Safan e-Brake has the ability to automatically clamp the top V tooling in place. This certainly reduces setting up times when moving from job to job. Being able to just press a button and have all 3M worth of top tooling clamped in position and when adjusting tooling is a nice feature for the machine setter and all adds to the ability to produce sheet metal components quicker enabling us to keep part prices down.

Segmented tooling for complex shapes

Being able to set up a vast range of tooling lengths is vital if we want to fold up trays, boxes, chassis components etc that have many bends. Having a range of bottom and top V tooling in segmented parts is perfect in allowing us to be very flexible when quoting new work and setting programs in production.

Sheet metal projects in June 2015

Monday, July 13th, 2015

Ventilation louvres in sheet metal panels

Louvre tooling in a CNC punch press

Here’s a great view of a recent sheet metal project (June 2015) showing just what can be achieved with a Trumpf CNC punch press and tooling. We have an up-form louvre tool that has been used to press into the sheet metal (2mm Zintec coated mild steel) to produce a large area of ventilation. In this product some electrical equipment needed to be housed and could not be allowed to overheat so the louvre tool solution was perfect. The tooling used enabled a close pitch pattern of louvres to be pressed in both the x and y direction over the sheet without any stress or sheet distortion.

Tapping threads in mild steel sheet metal

CNC punched mild steel components with tapped threads

When producing thin sheet metal components we often have to produce points within the designs with threads. These chassis trays could have had M3 self clinch or anchour rivet bushes inserted which would have done a good job but there wasn’t room within the design. Luckily for us we have a Trumpf 3000R CNC punch press which allows us to form a plunged hole and then form a thread within the parent sheet metal all on the CNC punch press. The positions where this has been carried out is automatically lubricated and can clearly be seen in the photo.

Bent stainless steel sections

Stainless steel formed sections

When folding up stainless steel sections you need to have a CNC press brake that can deliver sufficient tonnage and tooling that can cope with the loadings produced. With our brand new Safan e-Brake 3M 100 ton machine we just such a machine. These 3mm thick stainless steel sections were needed as support sections on a large ventilation cover project we have be developing with our customer for the last few months and they were no problem for the Safan e-Brake. The ability to quickly produce CNC programs at the machine, in 3D if needed, is an advantage as well as the ease with which we can make alterations to bending programs and save them directly to our system server for use again when the projects repeat.

Safan e-brake with mild steel enclosures

Safan e-brake with mild steel enclosures

And here’s the new machine itself. We are pleased to invest in a new Safan e-Brake CNC press brake to go along side our other 5 CNC press brakes. This machine enables us to support bending up to 3M long now which is in line with the 3M x 1.5M sheet that we can cut on our Trumpf 3030 fibre laser cutting machine. Also, having increased pressing force to 100 tons enables us to fold thicker sections again supporting the increased material thickness that we can offer with our laser cutter.

June 2015 has been a busy month finishing off a busy year for V and F Sheet Metal with investments in a brand new CNC press brake, 2 new spot welders, a down draft welding ventilation system and an additional 3D Radan software licence. We are always trying to improve the service we offer our customers, please call us and see how we can help you with your sheet metal projects.

A brand new CNC press brake for V and F Sheet Metal

Monday, July 6th, 2015

End of an era in CNC bending

We have had our Edwards Pearson PR6 from new and it’s time for it to go. I wouldn’t like to try and work out how may bends its completed but it’s easily into the 10 of millions. With over 20 thousand CNC programs it’s been a really good machine and earned its keep every day of the week. But all good things come to an end and at nearly 20 years old it was time for an update. It was surprising how quickly the press brake was disconnected and made ready to be lifted onto the lorry and off to it’s new owner. The space was free for just minutes before it’s replacement was heading into the factory, just enough time to sweep up and catch our breath.

Perfect position for bending sheet metal on a sunny day

The brand new Safan e-Brake 3M 100 ton CNC press brake was driven direct to our factory from the manufactures in the Netherlands and then lifted onto our factory yard ready to be maneuvered through the factory door. Perfect day for this kind of operation shame we couldn’t keep it here and work outside everyday but it is England. It looks a really smart machine and we can’t wait to get in inside and get started with bending up our sheet metal work but first we have to position it and connect it up.

Don’t drop it!

Always a nervous time when your new baby is being lifted and swung around to get it ready for positioning onto the factory floor. I’m never sure whether to look and make sure all is ok or stay in the office until it’s all done. Usually my curiosity gets the better of me and I have to see what’s happening and take some photos for the archive.

I’m sure I measured the door height correctly!

No matter how many times you check something and know that you are right it’s always good to see a new machine fit through the door and be moved into the factory without any issues. These guys are doing this everyday of the week with kit like this and bigger and make it look so easy but I’m still impressed how quickly they can have tons of machinery positioned to the inch and bolted down before you know it.

Safan e-brake in position at last

At last after viewing several machine styles and numerous meetings all the planning has worked out and the new machine fits exactly where we need it. Once the electricity and the data connection to our network is completed we can start our training and then start to see the new CNC press brake earn its keep.

I certainly expect the Safan e-Brake to be as productive as the Edwards Pearson was except with improved accuracy, easier programming software and the ability to cope with a greater range of work being 3M long and having 100 tons force at its control.

CNC punching sheet metal work

Tuesday, May 26th, 2015

CNC punching sheet metal work in Fareham, Hampshire, UK

CNC punching with a Trumpf 3000R punch press

Our main CNC punching machine is a Trumpf 3000R. It can CNC punch all over a sheet of metal 2.5M long by 1.25M wide without having to reposition the machine clamps giving a positioning accuracy of +/-0.1mm. With a reposition the machine can handle sheets longer making a flexible sheet metal manufacturing machine. With it’s single head design all the tools on the rail can be rotated through 360 degrees enabling any part being CNC punched to be produced at any angle helping us to make the most of each sheet of metal that we use. Being able to rotate all tooling speeds up production with less tool changes and gives a freedom to the part designer to be able to place punched features just where they want them and at any angle.

CNC punching mild steel geartrays

Here’s a better view of the mild steel geartrays that are being CNC punched in the image above. They have a series of circular holes punched in and rectangular cut-outs. But of more interest are the dimples and taptite screw plunged forms that save our customers so much time in production assembly when screwing electrical components onto the geartrays. You can see that that there is very little waste steel on this job with the geartrays being punched with common line cutting with just 5mm between each part. We can also buy in the sheet metal to a custom length for our customers so that even a higher percentage of the material is turned into product rather than scrap material. The geartrays are powder coated white and don’t have to have any features masked, saving money, and then they can be assembled.

CNC punching aluminium disks

Our second CNC punching machine is our Trumpf 200R which is very similar to the Trumpf 3000R but a bit smaller. It can still punch 2.5M long sheets but needs a reposition after 2M to get there. This machine has been the main stay of our CNC punching for many years and still does a great job for us. Along with it’s bigger brother they offer us a flexible and production CNC punching service to offer our customers be it prototyping, small batch production or higher volumes. With a vast standard CNC punch tool library we can sort out most peoples needs without any new tooling costs. If you want to see some of our standard tooling data tables that can guide you in your sheet metal design please visit, TRUMPF STANDARD 2D TOOLING.

Trumpf 200R CNC punch press

Here we have an aluminium circular disk being CNC punched out with the outer circumference punched with a banana tool. The advantage of a curved banana tool is that it has the correct radius ground into it to produce a clean curve quickly and with much less edge de-burring. Here you can see that the tool is being used with the machine’s internal chute enabling the disks to fall free from the sheet and drop into a collecting bin below. This eliminates the need to leave tags on the outer profile speeding up post operation cleaning. It also speed up the time taken to get each part out of the punched nest once all the punching is finished. We have found that every little feature that we can utilise on the Trumpf CNC punch presses leads to better parts and cheaper prices.

Take a look at the video of the Trumpf 200 in action producing these aluminium circular disks.

Fast Tube by Casper

If you have a product that you want CNC punching please give us a call and we can take a look and see if we can help to improve the design to reduce costs.

Sheet metal cnc punching

Thursday, May 21st, 2015

CNC punched ventilation grilles

These heater ventilation grilles have been CNC punched out with specially ground punch and die tooling to speed up production and produce a shape that when bent up produces very little resistance to air flow thereby increasing the overall efficiency of the heater. The parts were CNC punched on our trusty Trumpf 200 punch press which has produced 10s thousands of these parts over the years with no problems at all. The Trumpf 200 machine is a flexible production tool that seems to be able to turn it’s hand to almost anything we through at it and just keeps going and going. With regular services the machine can still produce parts to +/- 0.1mm accuracy and clean edges.

CNC punching electronics chassis covers

Here we have a batch of mild steel audio equipment chassis covers that have just been CNC punched on our main CNC punch press the Trumpf 3000R. The ventilation slots have been produced by using a standard library obround punch and die tool set and we have used the presser foot feature on the Trumpf 3000 to stop the webs between the slots tripping up in the sheet. This feature is controlled by the program software to enable us to press the head onto the sheet for the hits that we want. With common line cutting between the panels using a 70 x 5 rectangle tool there is very little waste sheet and the time is also reduces to produce each part leading to competitive prices for the customer.

CNC punched ventilation pattern

CNC punching a pattern of holes that are close together can often create a lot of stress within the sheet metal. With our Trumpf 3000 we can program the machine’s punching head to press down on the sheet with each hit helping to hold the sheet in place, reducing the amount of distortion. This product is still in the prototype stages but we are expecting to make quite a few of them over the next few months.

If you have a sheet metal project that needs CNC punching, please give us a call and we will be happy to take a look and see what we can do to give you a competitive price or review your design to save money in manufacturing.

Zintec sheet metal components

Monday, May 18th, 2015

Zintec sheet metal components

Another day at V and F and these zintec base plates caught my eye and a good example of various production methods working together.

Zintec is a zinc coated mild steel sheet metal that can be used as a good pre-treated surface for components that are going to be painted or powder coated. Zintec can also be used on it’s own in some cases where sheet metal components are kept dry and require minimal corrosion protection. In this case these base plates or a piece of scientific equipment have been manufactured by laser cutting, CNC bending and then having a range of sheet metal bushes and studs inserted using our Haeger inserter and will be powder coated. All the laser cut edges are perfectly clean as they were cut using nitrogen for a burn/oxide free cut. The photo shows how smooth a radiused feature can be when laser cut without any edge de-burring needed.

For additional examples of laser cut sheet metal components why not take a look at our Pinterest Boards.

If you have a new project coming up and you need laser cut sheet metal components please send us you drawings (2021). We are happy to help guide you on your design and offer a range of prices where needed.

Mild steel sheet metal chassis

Thursday, May 14th, 2015

Mild steel laser cut chassis blanks

Here’s another nice example of laser cutting and bending technology from Trumpf working together to make for an efficient production capability at V and F sheet Metal. We have just produced a batch of 2000 1.5mm thick mild steel chassis blanks on our Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser using oxygen as the assist gas. The chassis blanks were produced so cleanly that no edge deburring was needed after laser cutting. The chassis blanks shown here have slight signs of burning from the laser cutting process but this isn’t important as the acid treatments when they are being zinc plated will clean all this off the surface producing a perfect shiny finished component. As ever with laser cutting there were no tools involved and our customer has made several changes to the design with no price impact for them. The next process is to bend the chassis blanks up into there finished form.

Bending mild steel chassis components

The bending process is relatively simple and very quick with a Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake. We have made these chassis components before so the CNC program was already stored on our system server and it was a simple matter calling it back up. The tooling needed, position of the tooling and all bend sequence information is saved for the machine setter to use and then the machine operator to follow in producing each chassis component. A 3D graphic image with each bending stage can be viewed to ensure that the component is bent up correctly ready for inspection. Once the machine is set the Trumpf 7036 is very quick in producing each bend. The sequence of bends is repeated for each component until the batch is completed. The efficient ergonomic layout of the CNC press brake enables an operator to sit at the machine close to the tooling but still safe with the use of laser guards. The machine has it’s own lighting and adjustable work table for optimal position and enabling the operator to work without strain on longer batches of sheet metal work.

Finished mild steel chassis components

The final finished sheet metal chassis are stacked within arms length and at the same height as the bending area to minimise movement and speed up the process. The consistency of laser cutting and CNC bending using Trumpf equipment nicely is demonstrated here.

You may have a sheet metal chassis that you want pricing, it might need CNC punching, laser cutting and CNC bending. We are happy to take a look for you and produce prices and suggest ways that the component can be improved for manufacturing to save you money. Please give our team a call on 01489 577786 or send us an e-mail.

Folded sheet metal work

Monday, May 11th, 2015

Folded Zintec channels

Here’s a great little idea to save money on sheet metal brackets. We have CNC punched out bracket profiles with all their holes but left them still tagged within the parent sheet metal in separate panels. We have then bent them up in rows of 10 at the same time saving a lot of folding time. The final banks of 10 brackets are sent like this to the customer who can keep them on the shelf and break them out by simply twisting the channels of brackets whenever they want them. The only downside to this method of production is that we cannot deburr the edges as they are still within the folded channel when they are sent out but if you are happy to work with this then it’s a simple idea to save money and well worth considering for components with a consistent cross section.

Please give us a call if you think we might be able to help you with this technique and we will be happy to take a look at your designs for you.

Folded stainless steel housings

Stainless steel housings with folded sides and safe edges all around the tops. The safe edges have been produced by over bending to a 30 degree inclusion angle and then as a separate operation closed down with a flat bottomed CNC press brake tool. Once the housings had been folded up with close touching corners the corners joints were seam welded up and then cleaned off smooth before powder coating. These stainless steel housings are typical of the work we manufacture on Fareham, Hampshire, UK with batch of between 50 to 100 off.

Folded housings with multi-bend curved corners

CNC bending is great at producing straight bent sections. These can be just a slight touch of the sheet producing a 179 degree inclusive angle stiffening bend in large lids etc to stop them panting. Many parts are bent are 90 degress such as support angles, brackets, boxes and lids. Some as the example above can be safe edge profiles where the material is folded right back round on itself. There is another technique that can be carried out when bending sheet metal and that’s multi-bending. Multi-bending can be used to produce curved sections by using a series of small bends at regular intervals to simulate a curve by producing the flats as a tangent to the curve circumference. The advantage of this manufacturing method is the flexibility to use standard press brake top and bottom V tools to produce whatever radius of curve that is needed. This also allows us to modify the program if there are design changes and to deal with variations in material from batch to batch which can be a problem with fixed shape tooling. These parts have been produced on our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes which are the perfect machine for this type of work.

A selection of sheet metal projects, April 2015

Thursday, May 7th, 2015

Just a small taste of the wide range of sheet metal projects we manufactured during April 2015 in our sheet metal working factory in Fareham, Hampshire, UK. All sheet metal projects start with CNC programming of some sort or either CNC punching or CNC laser cutting and then onto the bending machines or other secondary operations. For more information on each image click to enlarge.

If you have a sheet metal project that you want help on please give us a call or e-mail your details to us and we will be happy to help with your design or produce some prices for you.

CNC punching sheet metal projects

Tuesday, May 5th, 2015

CNC punched aluminium fan panel

These aluminium electronic enclosure fan panels have been CNC punched using special shaped tools created to punch out the shapes in singles hits. Each triangle shape in the fan area has a single hit punch and die (although some were created by rotating the shape by 180 deg). The volumes of fan panels and the number of fan positions within each fan panel justified the customer investing in special tooling with the advantage of clean shapes in the component, more accurately produced parts, reduced cleaning up time and cheaper parts with less CNC punching time. These fan panels were then put through a grind master to produce a grain effect on both sides of the plates which removed any marks from the CNC punching process and any that were on the aluminium sheets during handling in the workshop. The final parts were then folded up into a 4 sided tray shape before being treated with Iridite NCP.

CNC punched 0.7mm zintec electrical plates

CNC punch presses are great for producing shapes in sheet metal components when the exact punch shaped tool is not available. Sometimes it’s just not be possible to create the desired shape with a single tool; perhaps because the shape is too complex and the tool would be very weak or the tonnage for a single hit would be too much for the punch press or simply there is not the volume requirement to justify the expenditure of bespoke tooling. That’s where a CNC punch really comes into its own with the ability to quickly nibble out shapes with a series of smaller tools to create the desired geometry. These zintec coated mild steel plates are used for supporting heating coils in small fan heaters and are a great example of nibbling out shapes with a series of small tools. You can see from the CNC punched nest that there were several standard rectangular tools used to create the plate end shape by the shape left in the waste material at each end. The advantage of using the Trumpf CNC punch press that we have is that the single punching head design enables each tool in turn to be turned through any angle that is required to produce the component design. This is a great advantage over turret machines with just a few auto-index stations as it allows us to do more with each tool cutting down the amount of time the machine spends on tool changes and frees up the sheet metal component designer to use more angles with features, cut-outs or outer profiles if required.

CNC punched 0.9mm zintec lighting gear trays

In the two examples above we have seen fan plates CNC punched with special tools made just to produce that job. We have also seen heating plates CNC punched with standard tools that we held on the shelf. This part, CNC punched from Zintec coated mild steel was produced using a combination of special tools and standard tools. The curved shape of the lighting control gear plate was CNC punched using a “banana” tool ground to produce the correct outer circumference needed so the gear plate could fit into a plastic molded light housing. The rest of the features were CNC punched using our standard punch and form tools. In the front towards the bottom of the image there is a small circular formed ring which is for taptite screws to screw into in production. The advantage of using this type of feature is that it allows a self-tapping screw more material to cut a thread into when the component sheet is quite this, in this case just 1.2mm thick Zintec.

I guess the main point to remember when designing sheet metal parts to be CNC punched is that there is a range of ways that components can be produced. We can help you in your design to take advantage of the huge standard tool library we have here on the shelf at V and F Sheet Metal and can advise when it might be appropriate to invest a little bit of money into bespoke tooling to help improve your parts and reduce the part costs. Please don’t hesitate to give us a call and our engineering team will be happy to talk through your deigns with you.

Patterns in sheet metal

Saturday, May 2nd, 2015

We love patterns in the sheet metal products that we manufacture be it random or fixed. These are just a few images from the thousands of sheet metal parts be manufacture ever month here in Fareham, Hampshire on some of the most modern sheet metal plant around. Whether parts have been cut by a laser machine or CNC punched and whether they are flat or bent up using CNC press brakes we can handle them in small to large batch sizes.

Perhaps you can see something here that is similar to a sheet metal product that you need in one of your designs, please give us a call and we will be happy to take a look at your drawings and give you a quote.

Step by step bending sheet metal boxes with a CNC press brake

Friday, May 1st, 2015

The images above show all the stages in bending up a 0.9mm thick mild steel sheet metal box. The sequence of bends is programmed into the CNC press brake to control bend length and bend angle, the correct top and bottom tooling is loaded into the press brake and then the correct bend sequence is followed to achieve the final folded box. This particular machine is an Edwards Pearson PR3 but the same process is used by any of the CNC press brakes we have to produce folded sheet metal components.

CNC punched mild steel front panels

Thursday, April 30th, 2015

CNC punched mild steel front panels

Nice little blog post today looking at mild steel front panels. These particular front panels are for professional audio equipment and have been CNC punched from mild steel sheet. All the tools were in our standard tool library on the Trumpf CNC punch presses so there was no tooling cost to the customer. The front panels were CNC punched with other parts for the order that were from the a material and gauge. After CNC punching they were edge de-burred and then folded and painted. With a batch size of 200 components CNC punching was the ideal method to produce these front panels. They could have been laser cut as well and we have the ability to laser cut in house moving work from machine to machine to help with production schedules when needed.

Whether it’s CNC punched or laser cut mild steel please give us a call and we will be happy to help you.

Mild steel sheet metal components

Monday, April 27th, 2015

CNC punched mild steel blanks

Here is a recent sheet metal projects we have manufactured, mild steel component blanks that have been CNC punched out on our Trumpf 3000 CNC punch press and had the small threaded holes tapped within the machine cycle. The advantage of tapping in the CNC press is the thread form is consistent from part to part, the thread is formed rather that cut so there is no swarf generated and the threads can be formed in 1-2 seconds. Click on the photo to the left and you will be able to see all the tapped holes. All the CNC punch tools used on this part were standard tools within our tooling library so there was no extra cost to our customer in setting up this job.

Bending mild steel components

The Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake is perfect for bending up small sheet metal parts such as these electronics enclosures. The operator can stand close to the tooling while bending the parts and see exactly what is going on throughout the bend cycle. the machine is quick to program, set and run making it the perfect machine tool for producing either small batches and large production runs of sheet metal parts. On the front of the CNC press brake there is a work table that enables of the machine operator to have a pile of the flat blanks and folded components either side of them as the bend the parts reducing the time taken to bend the parts and reduce stress on a long production run.

Folded mild steel components

And here we have the finished CNC punched and CNC bent mild steel sheet metal components. They are now ready to go off to the zinc platers and once back off to our customer in Spain.

Perhaps you have a sheet metal project that needs pricing or some assistance with the design to get the best from modern sheet metal manufacturing methods. Please give us a call and we will be happy to help you.

MiG welded mild steel fabrications

Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

MiG welded mild steel fabrications

This project was an odd one for us. These lighting support fabrications are made from steel bar cut to length with the corners notched off and all the holes pierced using fly-presses. The bends were all produced on our Edwards Pearson PR6 CNC press brake and then MiG welded together to make the cross shape you can see here. We manufactured a batch of 200 and these production methods were perfect for this type of order volume. They then went off to be hot dipped galvanised for protection against corrosion when being installed outside.

So although we specialise in CNC punching and CNC laser cutting we can produce parts using more traditional methods when needed. It’s all about having the range of equipment and skills to offer the complete service to our customers.

Folded sheet metal lighting housing

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

Folded lighting housing manufactured from black anodised aluminium sheet metal

Bent sheet metal housing

The sheet metal projects that are produced in our factory in Fareham, Hampshire for companies all over the UK and into Europe are very diverse. These black anodised lighting housings for a special installation were manufactured for a customer of ours in Portugal. Being able to take a customers drawing, produce a 3D model, CNC programs and manufacture the finished items with a black anodised finish within a couple of weeks was just what our customer needed to help them meet their tight deadline.

Both the rectangular and 10 sides polygonal housings were bent up on our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes with no problems. If you are not sure whether a component can be bent up from one piece of metal then just ask us and we will simulate the component and bends in 3D first and help you adapt your design for production if it needs changing.

Folded sheet metal housing

Any shape you like and we can CNC punch it out or laser cut it if it’s very complex, a 10 sided folded aluminium housing is no problem.

Perhaps you have a small sheet metal project that you need sorting out, need help on your design, advise on the best method of manufacturing to keep your costs down then give us a call and we will be more that happy to help you.

Sheet metal fabrications

Friday, April 17th, 2015

Sheet metal fabrications

Sheet metal fabrications as shown here have manufactured from 5251 aluminium alloy sheet and are used as enclosures for housing LED display units. They have been CNC punched out, folded up, had a variety of stand offs and flush head studs inserted into them and then all the corners joints welded up and cleaned off smooth. Once the fabrications have been powder coated they is no sign that the enclosures were ever welded at the corners. The fit of the fabricated lids onto the housings have been calculated before manufacturing in a 3D model created in the latest version of Radan sheet metal fabrication software.

We manufacture many hundreds of different sheet metal fabrications for our customers designs and would be really keen to help you with any projects that you may need manufacturing.

Laser cutting 3mm mild steel sheet metal

Thursday, March 19th, 2015

Fast Tube by Casper

Simple video showing our Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser cutter cutting through 3mm thick mild steel sheet metal to produce blanks for electronics chassis housings. You can see that the laser cutting machine is easily able to process this type of material and thickness of sheet using nitrogen gas as the assist gas to cut through the steel. These chassis housings do not has any edge de-burring after laser cutting and once folded with bushes and studs inserted are ready to go straight to powder coating. You can see that whether it’s laser cutting circles, slots, cut-outs or edge profiles it makes no difference to this machine as the laser beam simply follows the program without the need for special tooling. All we have to do is change the nozzle size to suit a particular material thickness and that only takes 1 minute. This makes laser cutting a very versatile process for trying out new design prototypes and small batch work as well as running larger volume production.

As well as watching the laser cutting head cutting through the sheet metal within the laser machine the operator can monitor the progress of the program on the screen show at the end of the video. This enables the operator to make corrections if a gets caught or start the program from the same place so that parts are not lost within a sheet.

If you have a sheet metal component and are not sure whether it should be laser cut or CNC punched then just contact us through the website and we will be happy to take a look at your design ideas and pick the process that best suits the material, thickness and design to give you the best quality and price or component.

Formed sheet metal work

Wednesday, March 11th, 2015

Formed sheet metal sections

Formed sheet metal work with curved forms can be produced in several ways whereas straight line bending is always produced with V block tooling in a CNC press brake.

Forms with a curved shape can be rolled if the curved form is a constant radius without any problems. This works best if the whole sheet metal component is rolled for example a round ring or tube. We can roll part of a form and have straight sections like this picture but it is more difficult to start and stop the roll form within the component accurately so we tend to not part roll components. We can form shapes with curved sections using multi-bend techniques on our CNC press brakes. This programming technique allows us to simulate the curved form with a series of small bends acting as flats or tangents to the curve form. The smaller the gaps between the bends the more smooth the form will be but the longer it takes to produce the component. This CNC multi-bending technique is particularly useful when forming curves that have a compound cross section such as 2 or more radius forms blended together. We use this method in production volumes and for prototyping curved forms for our customers to test their designs before committing to tooling.

These sheet metal air condition fan guards were manufactured using form tools to form the curved shape in one operation on one of our CNC press brake forming machines. The advantage being the speed that each part can be produced. This type of manufacturing is suitable for higher volume or batches that repeat quite often and then there is a quick pay back on the time spent making the tooling. If a design is likely to need to be changed quite often it is better to stick with multi-bending where changes do not involve any tooling just a program change. With all these forming methods we are here to help you make the right decision and keep your production costs to a minimum when selecting sheet metal component forms.

Formed mild steel channels

If you look carefully you can see 2 sheet metal formed sections on this pallet. Both formed channels have been laser cut from Zintec coated mild steel sheet using compressed air as the laser cutter assist gas. The sections on the left have been formed up on our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes with two 90 degree bends to form a channel. The sections on the right have been bent on the same machine with the same tooling but only have 135 degree bends. These two sheet metal components are a good example of the flexibility that can be achieved with CNC press brakes using a standard range of tooling and simple program changes to create a wide range of forms.

Formed mild steel end caps

No post on formed sheet metal work would be complete with a look at sheet metal brackets. These parts are used on air conditioning / heater assemblies to secure the fan units and motors to a standard fan deck. Again as the example above they have been formed up on one of our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes with standard V bend top and bottom tooling. They were CNC punched out before being formed up and then had mild steel zinc plated hank bushes inserted before being spot welded to the fan deck.

Perhaps you have a sheet metal product that needs straight or curved forms and you are not exactly sure how to go about having it produced. Just send us your drawings and we will be happy to advise you on the most appropriate forming method to suit your design, material type, thickness and production volumes.

Welded sheet metal enclosures

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015

Welded sheet metal enclosure assemblies can come in so many shapes and sizes

We are often asked to weld up sheet metal enclosures for our customers in mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium alloys. Being able to TiG weld, MiG weld, gas weld, braze and spot weld helps us to deal with everything that is requested of us for fabricating commercial sheet metal enclosures.

Please follow the links to our welding plant pages or product galleries to see lots of examples of welded sheet metal enclosures and fabricated assemblies.

Laser cutting galvanised mild steel sheet metal

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

Incredible fast laser cutting with a Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser

Fast Tube by Casper

No you are not seeing things this laser cutting is really going this fast, we haven’t speeded up the video. We are cutting 0.8mm thick galvanised mild steel with nitrogen and the machine absolutely flys through this type of sheet metal work. The advantage of using a fibre laser is the cost is reduced over CO2 laser cutting, it’s much faster and there is no edge de-burring to be done that can be the case after CNC punching. The other advantage over CNC punching on a job like this is we can use the material to within 5mm of the edge without a problem whereas if we tried to CNC punch that close to the sheet metal it would distort and probably wrap up around the punching head when CNC punching because of the lack of strength on such thin material. With laser cutting as the head doesn’t physically touch the sheet metal itself (just the laser beam) the strength is not so import as the sheet doesn’t move just the head.

If you have thin gauge sheet metal work that you are currently having CNC punched of laser cut with CO2 lasers give us a call and will be happy to take a look at see how we can improve the component and reduce your costs.

Folded sheet metal work

Monday, January 26th, 2015

Folded sheet metal work

Sets of zintec coated mild steel folded sheet metal work used to create heating fan units. The flat blanks were produced by CNC punching from 0.9mm think material and after edge de-burring being bent up on one of our CNC press brakes. Typical batch sizes for these parts are 50 to 100 off with a turn round time of just a few days as we normally have stock of this material on the shelf. Sheet metal folded sections such as these can be CNC programmed on our CNC press brake bending machines in minutes and then saved away to be recalled for another batch whenever they are needed, helping to keep down set up times and costs for every batch that we fold up.

Folded stainless steel sheet metal channels

Whether it’s mild steel, aluminium or stainless steel folded sheet metal work makes no difference to us when we are sorting out production for you. We have a range of machine types, tonnages and tooling to suit all types of materials and in a section of materials thicknesses. So whether you are looking for sheet metal to be folded in 0.3mm tin plated mild steel, 0.9mm pre-painted mild steel, 1.5mm stainless steel, 3mm aluminium, 4mm not rolled plate or 8mm grained stainless steel we can sort it for you.

Folded sheet metal sections

Folded stainless steel sheet metal work used to create the base and back for an adaptor housing to secure a light fitting to a ceiling section. This view shows the folded sections with bushes inserted before the separate folded end plates have been seam welded in place. Once the stainless steel ends were TiG welded in place and the n cleaned off smooth and powder coated the whole folded fabrication looked like one triangular block with all joints hidden from view to the final customer.

If you are looking for folded sheet metal work from the smallest of angle bracket right up to 2.5M folded profiles then please contact us with a drawing and we will be happy to take a look at your ideas and turn them into finished product.

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