Blog - Page 13 of 22 -

Sheet metal welding fabrications

Thursday, January 22nd, 2015

I thought it would be useful to pick out 3 quite different sheet metal welding fabrication projects being manufactured during January 2015 to use as illustrations of the type of welding techniques we can employ when making fabrication assemblies.

Sheet metal MiG welded fabrications

Here I have shown a batch of 100 wall mounting bracket assemblies for supporting speaker systems. We normally manufacture 100 to 200 of the bracket assemblies at a time from mild steel square section tube, 5mm bar and 6mm thick mild steel plate. The 6mm thick plate is screwed to the wall with the welded tube projecting out at 90 degrees. The 5mm bar is used both sides of the tube to strengthen the joint and prevent the heavy speaker sagging once it has been fixed to the tube.

We used to buy the laser cut 6mm plates in from another source as they were too thick for us to CNC punch with our Trumpf punch presses. Now we have invested in a new Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser cutting machine we can easily laser cut them in house, out of interest the laser cutter is able to cut steel up to 20mm thick so 6mm was no problem. We also used to saw the mild steel tubes to length and then drill all the holes both sides with a standard pillar drill set up. We have now moved this operation onto the laser cutter as well with some customer built jigs. We still saw the tubes to length and then simply position them into the jig on the bed of the laser machine and as the laser head can move in the Z axis it can move onto the tubes and cut the holes require. We just cut a row of tubes and then flip them all over 180 degrees before cutting the other side. This has proven to be much quicker than having to drill them all out by hand. The tube, strengthening bars and wall mounting plate is positioned within a jig and then MiG welded together. By using anti-spatter spray we can keep the surface of the plates clean and they need little cleaning up before being ready to go for powder coating. MiG welding tends to be used on heavier sheet metal welding fabrication jobs than TiG welding as it’s quicker to apply and you can build up a lager weld quicker than TiG welding. I’s not a neat as TiG welding but in this case that was not important.

Sheet metal TiG welded fabrications

This is a simple sheet metal support shelf for a rack mounting enclosure. We often make 20-30 of these fabricated assemblies at a time with both parts being manufactured from 1.5mm mild steel. The main shelf and stiffening channel was laser cut from the same sheet of metal using nitrogen as the assist gas. Using nitrogen produced a very clean cut that didn’t need and edge de-burring and also is a perfect finish ready for zinc plating or powder coating.

Although you cannot see in this photo the stiffening channels have small tags laser cut in them and the main rack shelf has a small rectangular slot cut to match the tag. The welder who TiG welds them together doesn’t have to worry about positioning them or measuring point to tack weld as the 2 parts simply press together and are them welded. This method of assembly for welding is also a simple check that the 2 parts are being bent correctly as they can be checked once the first parts are bent to ensure they all line up before running the complete batch through the CNC press brakes.

Sheet metal spot welded fabrications

These spot welded fabricated assemblies are used as part of a chassis used on some scientific measuring equipment. The batches can vary from 25 off up to several hundred at a time. They are laser cut from 2mm thick mild steel with nitrogen as the cutting assist gas in house on our Trumpf 3030 fibre laser cutter. The front section with the curved forms are folded up and the then extended sides are created but spot welding them to the front section with support strips as the overlapping joint inside the profile. The spot welding tips on the outside sheet metal surface were flat to reduce the amount of distortion and any indents to these surfaces. Spot welding is good for madding welded joints were great strength is not needed, they can be much quicker than TiG or MiG welding but as they are so small several spots are needed over a larger are to ensure sufficient joint strength is achieved.

After the spot welded joints had been made the outer surfaces were cleaned off and the orbital sanded before being powder coated silver.

If you have a sheet metal work project that needs welding then perhaps you might consider using our skills, please give us a call on 01489 577786 or e-mail us some drawings at sales@vandf.co.uk

Sheet metal bending services

Monday, January 19th, 2015

Sheet metal bending services offered at V and F Sheet Metal for sub-contract manufacturing of sheet metal cases, enclosures, boxes, brackets, channels, chassis up to 2.5M long

Sheet metal CNC bending facility in Fareham, Hampshire, UK

Here’s a range of larger sheet metal items being bent with our Edwards Pearson PR6 2.5M CNC press brakes. The parts in the front of the picture are 0.9mm thick Zintec coated mild steel pump bases and have been laser cut without the need for any edge de-burring. The parts on the left hand side and at the machine itself are 0.7mm thick pre-painted mild steel light fitting housings and the longer parts on the right hand side are 0.7mm thick pre-painted mild steel light fitting gear trays. both of the pre-painted parts were CNC punched out with the longer gear trays also having plunged form for self tapping screws to fit into. This range of sheet metal work is typical of the types of parts that are bent up every day of the week. The PR6 CNC press brakes have 6 axis computer control of the bend tooling and the back stops so they can handle very complex cross sections when needed or simple parts up to 2.5M long.

Sheet metal working bending service

Although the Edwards Pearson 2.5M CNC press brakes can fold small items we tend to put them our Trumpf 7036 machines if possible. These machines are electric rather than hydraulic which means they are very quiet, fast and cheaper to run. They have the ability to save CNC bending programs direct to the company wide computer network so that they jobs can be run on either machine or both together if needed to provide a useful flexibility to production when we are busy. The Trumpf 7036 press brakes are also very accurate which helps us to offer a comprehensive sheet metal bending service to all our customers.

Bending sheet metal chassis panels

Here’s our other Trumpf 7036 bending machine with 0.9mm zintec pump trays chassis panels being folded. These parts were run in a batch of 150 off which is perfect for this machine with samples and small batches up to jobs with many thousands of bends often being worked on throughout the week.

Perhaps you have a manufacturing project that needs our sheet metal bending services. Please give us a call on 01486 577786 or send us you drawings (PDF, DXF, DWG, SAT and STEP formats excepted) and we will be happy to take a look for you.

Sheet metal work fabrication and assembly

Friday, January 16th, 2015

Here’s some new examples of sheet metal fabrication and assembly I’ve spotted in our factory.

Sheet metal work spot welded assembly

Spot welding is a great way of joining thin sheets of metal together in a permanent way. The process is fast, simple, cheap and produces little or no distortion at the point of the joint. There is a small burn mark and witness where the 2 copper spot welding tips come together to momentarily squeeze the molten spot of metal together. On most occasions this type of welded joint is not seen as in this case of these air conditioning fan housings. No further cosmetic cleaning up was needed as they were assembled into a larger outer sheet metal case and now seen by the final customer. When the spot welds are seen, for instance on a front panel, we can cleaned them off and orbital the outer surface before say painting so that there is no visible sign of the spot welded joint. You can see on these units that we have applied several spot welds to each bracket to ensure they do not fail in use. These sheet metal fabricated assemblies illustrate quite a range of manufacturing techniques including CNC punching, CNC press brake angle bending with standard tooling, forming of curved sections with custom tooling, inserted hank bushes, assembly and of course spot welding.

The ability of sheet metal work to encompass such a range of different techniques is its biggest strength enabling it to take on so many different forms to meet a customer’s design requirements.

Sheet metal presswork and assembly

Here we have a formed end cap that is assembled to long bent slats in 12 places by means of a series of hollow rivets. The end caps have been run through power press tooling to firstly produce the blanks with the holes pierced in place. There is then a second power press tool to form the end cap sides up all in one operation producing soft rounded corners. The slats are made separately from cut strips of Zintec sheet with fixing holes positions pierced in our fly presses and then the ends are bent up to match the fixing positions in the end caps. Once the rivets are pulled into position all the thin Zintec coated mild steel parts become very strong. Using press tools enables us to manufacture sheet metal components in just a few quick operations and this type of production method is best suited to higher volumes of work due to the initial cost of tooling at the start of a design project.

Sheet metal work folding and assembly

These end cap assemblies are very similar to the ones show above except that they have end caps that have been laser cut and folded up on our CNC press brakes rather than formed in press tooling. The method of assembly to make up the fabrications is the same rivet method used. Laser cutting and CNC bending up the end caps isn’t as fast as dedicated hard press tools but does has the advantage of being able to be easily changed to suit new design ideas and updates without any tool costs. You have to decide whether a design will be stable enough and the volumes high enough to suit press tooling over CNC punching / laser cutting and CNC bending.

We are happy to review components in both ways for you to see what would be the best price and method of production for your new sheet metal fabrication assemblies.

CNC punching sheet metal brackets

Thursday, January 15th, 2015

Trumpf 200 CNC punch press punching brackets down the chute

Fast Tube by Casper

Great example of the flexibility and effective use of all of a sheet of metal being CNC punched to make galvanised mild steel brackets. The Trumpf 200 is being used to punch out the bracket blanks and separate them from the parent sheet metal before allowing them to drop through the chute in the bend of the punch press straight into a collecting bin below. This method of CNC programming uses common line cutting of each part but doesn’t tag them at the corners so they are removed from the sheet automatically with any further processing and uses as much material as possible whig all goes to making a cheaper bracket and a shorted lead time from the placement of purchase order to delivery.

Have a sheet metal bracket or small component that you think you are paying too much for then let us have a look and see if we can improve the production methods needed to CNC punch out the part or even laser cut them to help you out. Please give us a call on 01489 577786 or e-mail via the address on the website.

Brackets

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015

Brackets

Brackets can be simple sheet metal angles and right up to complex fabrication assemblies with multiple parts and welded joints.

These brackets have been manufactured from 2mm thick aluminium alloy by being CNC punched on a Trumpf punch press. The edges have been de-burred to remove any sharp areas around the outer profile and then bent up into the U shaped bracket you can see here on one of our CNC press brakes. These brackets have been manufactured to help support light fittings on a track lighting system and are typical of the type of brackets we produce every week of the year. Some of our brackets can be in thin stainless steel, thick aluminium or mild steel in many different metal treatments such as zinc plating, anodising or powder coating.

If you have a sheet metal work design that needs support brackets then please give us a call and we will be happy to help you with your design to reduce costs.

Sheet metal work enclosure

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

sheet metal work enclosure

Sheet metal work enclosure

A 7 sided regular polygon is not a shape we are asked to make very often but we soon turned our hand to it. The sheet metal work enclosure was manufactured from aluminium and black anodised. It was used by a lighting company to enclosure some control gear for a ceiling mounted down light. The circular plate just seen underneath the aluminium enclosure was laser cut from stainless steel and acted as an enclosure cover plate. Using Radan sheet metal software it was easy to model the 7 sided enclosure and develop out the correct flat pattern for laser cutting and bending to produce the small run of components without the need for a sample to be produced first.

This sheet metal work enclosure although an odd shape is typical of the bespoke sheet metal projects we often get involved with for our customers. It’s great to be able to help bring people’s ideas to reality quickly and with the minimum of costs. If you want any help with a sheet metal enclosure you have whether it’s a simple box or something more complicated please don’t hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to help you with design.

CNC punching sheet metal work

Monday, January 12th, 2015

CNC punch presses ready for action

Here at V and F Sheet Metal we are very proud of our 2 Trumpf CNC punch presses which are the very heart of our sheet metal manufacturing company. Up until the end of 2013 all our sheet metal working projects started off on either our Trumpf 200 or Trumpf 3000 CNC punch presses. In late 2013 we invested in a Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser to sit along side the 2 punch presses to offer the complete sheet metal blank processes service for our customers. These CNC punch presses have been great at producing such a wide variety of work in materials as diverse as 0.7mm stainless steel to 5mm aluminium alloys, from 0.4mm tin plated mild steel to 4mm mild steel, from 0.4mm pre-anodised reflector materials, pre-painted steel to 3mm zintec. Simply punching out flat sheet metal blanks to forming dimpled feet, plunged and tapped threads, ventilation louvres, formed CSK holes and a whole host of special shaped holes with custom tooling.

For more information on Trumpf CNC punch press tooling please follow the link to our standard tooling.

Video of CNC punch press in action producing mild steel sheet metal work

Fast Tube by Casper

Here’s our Trumpf 3000R in action CNC punching some 0.9mm mild steel gear box housings. This particular sheet of metal is 2M long and 1M wide but the machine can handle sheets that are 2.5M long x 1.25M wide without any re-positioning of the sheet holding clamps. Longer work can be produced with an automatic re-position of the clamps.

Mild steel CNC punching

We have had our Trumpf 200 for many years now and it’s just the perfect machine tool for thin gauge sheet metal work. Using Radan software to produce parts and complex nests of parts we can punch out single parts for prototyping and multiple thousands for production all for the same machine.

The beauty of a single punching head on both the machines means we can move from job to job very quickly with few tool changes enabling smaller batches of work to still be viable. Using Radan software to drive both machines enables us to swap jobs between them very quickly giving a more flexible service to our customers. Here you can see it producing sheet metal gear box bases for light fitting control gear. The dimpled spacer feet have been pressed in place and each was formed in under a second.

CNC punched stainless steel plates

This image of a stainless steel pump mounting plate illustrates a simple piece of sheet metal work but actually is typical of the power of a Trumpf punch press. The CSK holes have been formed into the material with a conical punch. A pilot hole has been punched first and then the CSK formed in one hit in under 1 second. The CSK form tool is much quicker than drilling a CSK form and neater. This CSK forming tool also allows the sheet metal work to come straight off the punch press and after a quick edge de-burring operation it’s ready to be shipped to the customer.

The keyhole shape has been CNC punched with a simple obround tool and a circle tool used together. Again, this is another strength of CNC punching in being able to combine standard stock CNC tooling that we have on the shelf and produce more complex shapes and cutouts without the need for new special tooling.

Perhaps you have a sheet metal work project that we can CNC punch out for you, we will be pleased to take a look and see if we can save you money and produce the parts. Please send us a drawing or give us a call and we will be happy to have a chat with you.

Folding sheet metal brackets from mild steel CNC punched cut blanks

Friday, January 9th, 2015

Folding sheet metal brackets from mild steel laser cut blanks

CNC punched sheet metal blank waiting to be folded

Before we can fold up a sheet metal angle bracket we need to produce an accurate flat blank with all the necessary holes, slots and profiles cut. Accuracy is key to producing a consistent final component so that each blank can be bent with the same bend sequence within the CNC press brake program. It can either be produced by laser cutting but in the case we used a CNC punch press to punch out the blank and then with edge deburring on a vertical deburr belt it was ready for bending up to shape. The punched blanks are all stacked the same way with the burred edges all the same way to speed up bending and reduce the risk of folding the brackets inside out.

CNC press brake safety

The safety system on the Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake is a laser guard consisting of a digital send and receive unit. The laser light guard is active when the top and bottom tool are further apart than the width of a finger and inactive once the tools are safely brought together within the machine. If you look carefully you can see the top V tool and the bottom V block with the back gauge on the left hand side and the work piece on the right hand side. The programming of the light guard is all automatic and integral to the safe operation of the machine.

CNC press brake folding tooling

The top and bottom tooling that is used to produce the bends in these angle brackets are simple to look at but are ground to a high degree of accuracy enabling precise bend sizes and angles to be achieved again and again within the bend cycle of the machine. The machine programmer can specify the tooling type for the top and bottom tools, the angle of bend required and the distance from the edge of the sheet of metal. By building up a sequence of these simple bends more complex brackets can be bent up with bends being formed up and down any angle required and safe edges with bends flattened over on themselves.

Folded sheet metal brackets

And the final folded mild steel brackets with 3 bends. The joints are folded tight together ready for small TiG welded tacks to be used to lock them together. The mild steel brackets are them zinc plated before being shipped to the customer. These angle brackets are quite simple but still have to be correct to the drawing and held within tolerance which the Trumpf 7036 is ideally suited to achieve in thin gauge steel.

Got a sheet metal bracket that needs manufacturing, please give us a call or e-mail use your drawings and we will be happy to help you.

CNC punch press nests for sheet metal work

Thursday, January 8th, 2015

CNC punch press nests generated with Radan software for a range of sheet metal components

Here’s a great collection of recent CNC punching nests that we have produced here at V and F Sheet Metal using Radan software for our Trumpf 3000 and Trumpf 200 CNC punch presses. We can produce most sheet metal parts that our customers want without any new tooling using the standard tooling we have on the shelf that we have built up over many years. You can follow the like to the standard CNC punch press tooling page where each shape is listed and all the free sizes available as explained. If you are not sure please just call us and we will be happy to advise you as often a couple of small changes to your design can eliminate any tooling costs and also reduce CNC punching time which can considerably reduce the part costs.

If you click on the images above you will find more information on each part and a more detailed view of the tooling used.

Sheet metal frames

Wednesday, January 7th, 2015

Sheet metal frame – mild steel

Sheet metal frames can be used to support, surround and contain many different products. These particular frames have been laser cut from 0.7mm thick CR4 mild steel sheet and then bent up on a CNC press brake. The advantage of using laser cutting to produce these frames is there is no edge de-burring required and as they were cut with compressed air as the assist gas they were cut very quickly and cheaply.

They are used by a lighting company to provide the front frame of an office light fitting and will be powder coated white and then pop riveted to the light housing before installation in office suspended ceilings in place of a ceiling tile. We manufacture lots of different frames from mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium alloys for many different products including light fittings, air conditioning surrounds, pump housings, LED display housings etc. If you have any sheet metal work projects that need housing enclosures or surrounding frames please give us a call on 01489 577786 or send an email to the address on the website and we will be happy to take a look for you whether it’s just a few for a special project, prototyping or higher volumes, we are here to help.

Sheet metal brackets – lots of them!

Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

Aluminium angle brackets

Even the simplest angle bracket can need multiple manufacturing processes to complete it to a customers design. These simple angle brackets needed the following stages: CNC 3D modelling, CNC programming for a CNC punch press, punching out on a Trumpf 3000R CNC punch press, edge de-burring to remove any sharp edges and corner tags, folding up on a CNC press brake, alocrom 1200 treatment and then insertion of small PEM self clinch bushes. These brackets are typical of the brackets that we manufacture every day of the week for our customers here from our factory in Fareham, Hampshire. They may be aluminium as these brackets of from stainless or mild steel, they may have many bends or be a simple angle, with welded sections or just left as single parts, with studs and bushes pressed in place or with simple plain holes. Whatever the bracket design you have in mind we can manufacture it and often help you by suggesting ways of reducing costs when reviewing your design at the price estimating stage. One this occasion we manufactured a batch of 200 brackets but it can be as low as just a few for a special project or many thousands depending on the needs of our customers.

Aluminium strirrup brackets

Here we have some aluminium stirrup brackets used to support battery powered LED light fittings. They have been laser cut from 2mm 5251 aluminium sheet metal, de-burred, with 2 bends and then had a hand operation to pull the bracket curve around a former jig to create the shape that you can see here in the photo. On this occasion we manufactured 300 brackets ready for a call off of 100 per month. this is a service we can offer on smaller components so that our customers enjoy the reduced cost of a larger batch of work but don’t have to take all the parts in one go.

Laser cut mild steel brackets

Laser cut mild steel brackets. Again a simple single bend bracket which has been laser cut from 1.2mm thick mild steel with no need to have any edge de-burring. The bends were formed on a Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake with standard press brake tooling so at no extra charge to our customer. The advantage of laser cutting brackets like these that have radius corners is that we can produce any size of radius without the need for tooling and can blend rads together to make safe edges for assembly and in the final bracket if handled in use.

If you have a single bracket you want manufacturing or lots of them please give us a call and we will be happy to help you with a quote or work with you to refine your design for manufacturing and save you money.

Sheet metal working projects from 2014

Monday, January 5th, 2015

Sheet metal working projects from 2014

A look back at some of the sheet metal working projects from 2014.

Sheet metal working – stainless steel housings

Here’s a stainless steel housing that we have manufactured for a company who assemble pump control units. These pump housings are made in relatively small batches of 10 to 20 at a time with a series of different control panels and mounting brackets. The main manufacturing stages are after they have been programmed, CNC punching, edge de-burring, CNC bending, insertion on self-clinch bushes and corner tack welds. These housings are typical of so many sheet metal projects that we manufacture for a large range of our customers including several production processes. The ability to swap from job to job for the same customer or different customers within the same day and keep manufacturing plant busy is the key to an efficient operation and therefore competitively prices components for our customers. These stainless steel pump housings have had several issue changes which we have easily dealt with using our Radan CAD/CAM software. Every time a design change is required by the customer on these housings or any customers sheet metal working project we can change any CNC programs needed in CNC punching, laser cutting or CNC bending and make reference to it on our internal production control computer database, P4W. This enables us to track a change and reflect the issue level on all internal paper work and output this on delivery notes and invoices helping our customers to keep track of new parts in their stores areas.

Sheet metal working – zintec brackets

These zintec (zinc coated mild steel) brackets are used within the manufacture of professional audio speaker housings. We manufacture these particular brackets in batches of 500 at a time but angle brackets for us can range from 10 to 10,000 off just depending on the customers needs and whether they have them all in one go or take the brackets on a call off program. The main manufacturing stages are after they have been programmed, CNC punching, edge de-burring and CNC bending. These zintec brackets are much simpler than the stainless steel pump housings discussed above but are also any area of the busy that we produce many variants for our customers. Again, these parts are often run through our sheet metal working factory with other brackets for the same customer or other customers brackets due to the simple flexibility of CNC punching and CNC bending with Trumpf equipment.

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

Perhaps next time we are manufacturing these brackets we may be making some for you as well!

Laser cutting sheet metal work

Saturday, January 3rd, 2015

Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser cutter in action

Fast Tube by Casper

Just a simple 3mm thick mild steel sheet metal work project today to show you. This part used to be manufactured on one of our CNC punch presses and could be if needed. Today it’s being produced on our laser cutter to reduce the amount of de-burring needed and produce more from the standard sheet of metal. Considering it’s cutting through 3mm thick mild steel this machine is really moving at speed and is a perfect tool for this type of work. You can see from the short laser cutting video that the parts can be placed very close together (5mm apart for these parts) and near the edges of the sheet in all directions enabling the best possible use of all the sheet metal.

Perhaps you have a sheet metal work project that can be laser cut, we may well be able to speed up your production times and reduce your costs, please give us a try. We are more than happy to look at your drawings and produce a range of prices free of charge.

Sheet metal panels with custom tooled features

Friday, January 2nd, 2015

CNC punched mild steel panels

When we wanted to produce a batch of galvanised mild steel gear trays which would be bent up to make channels the only solution was to CNC punch them on one of our Trumpf punch presses. Not only could the CNC punch press produce the holes and outer profile in the sheet it was also used to form in a customer designed feature, more details shown below. The samples and then the production were both manufactured on the CNC punch press making it such a versatile machine in our sub-contract engineering factory.

Formed sheet metal louvre in mild steel

To produce specific single hit forms dedicated CNC punch press tooling is needed. Here we have a lance / form that was needed in a thin gauge galvanised mild steel channel. We managed to make a few with simple fly press tooling to sample the parts but once the volumes increased a dedicated CNC punch press tool was needed so that the cut and form could be formed accurately and quickly in the sheet metal before any bending operations took place.

Whether you have a sheet metal CNC punching project that needs our standard tools or a special customer made tool please give us a call and we will be happy to help you.

CNC punching holes in sheet metal work

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

CNC punching sheet metal tooling

The Trumpf 3000R CNC punch press holds all its tooling in tool holders held on a rail at the back of the machine along with the sheet holding clamps. The tooling sets can easily be swapped over from job to job and usually a tooling set up only takes a few minutes making it the perfect machine for small batches and prototypes but also very quick when punching larger batches of work.

CNC punch, die and stripper plate

For a CNC punch press to produce a hole a tooling set consisting of 3 separate parts is needed, a punch, a die and a stripper plate. The punch fits through the stripper plate and then the sheet metal and finally into the die. There is a very close match between the punch and die with a small clearance on the die to allow the punch and material to fit through e.g. 0.2mm for 1mm mild steel. The stripper plate is designed to help strip the sheet metal off the punch once it is pulled back out of the die before moving to its next position to punch again. The whole punching process only takes a fraction of a second which makes this machine very productive on any sheet metal work that needs a lot of holes punched into it.

CNC punched holes in sheet metal work

Here we have a simple example of mild steel having been CNC punched with a couple of different sized round tools and some overlapping rectangular tools to produce the slots at different angles. You can see the nibble marks where the tools overlapped slightly in cutting the shape as we didn’t have the exact tool sizes the customer had designed in their drawing. This is the great advantage of CNC punching with a Trumpf machine in that it’s so easy to nibble with tools to produce the shape you need without damaging the standard tools and dies.

We have many standard tools which should satisfy most peoples needs but if you are not sure please give us a call and we will be happy to discuss your design needs and how we can help you.

Sheet metal fabrications

Sunday, December 28th, 2014

Sheet metal fabrications produced by V and F Sheet Metal in December 2014

Stainless steel fabrications

Sheet metal fabrications for us here at V and F Sheet Metal can be small mild steel welded brackets, welded aluminium enclosures or stainless steel housings such as these shown here. These housings have been manufactured from 1.5mm thick 304 stainless steel sheet by laser cutting and folding and then TiG welding. The final housing and lid assembly has been spot welded together with a stainless steel piano hinge. The final fabricated assembly is then polished to a high shine before sending to the customer for assembly of electronics equipment.

Mild steel sheet metal work

Mild steel frame works waiting to be TiG welded and cleaned off smooth before being powder coated. The large zinc plated and clear passivated hank bushes pressed into the frames are tank bushes and are blind on the inside so no water can get into these frame fabrications once they are used outside as LED display housings. Sheet metal fabrications can come in many shapes and sizes and we are always adding to the range of work we do for people so please come back and read some other posts for more information or call us if you have a specific fabrication project in mind. We are happy to discuss your needs and try and improve your project for manufacturing saving you time and money.

Manufacturing facilities at V and F Sheet Metal

Friday, December 26th, 2014

A quick preview of the main manufacturing facilities here at V and F Sheet Metal

CNC laser cutting
Using a Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser able to cut mild steel, stainless steel, aluminium, brass and copper. Maximum sheet size is 3M x 1.5M, please ask for thickness details as this depends on material type.

CNC punching
Using both Trumpf 200 and 3000 CNC punch presses to punch out all the same materials covered by laser cutting but also anodised reflector materials, pre-painted steels and plastic coated materials. Maximum sheet size is 3M x 1.5M, please ask for thickness details as this depends on material type.

CNC bending
Using both Trumpf 7036, Edwards Pearson and Guifil CNC press brakes to bend all the materials cut by laser cutting and CNC punching. Maximum bend length is 2.5M.

TiG and MiG welding
Using the latest Kempi equipment to TiG and MiG mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium sheet metal fabrications.

Spot welding
Spot welding facility with new machines being added early 2015.

Fly presses and drilling facilities
Used to pierce, drill and form all sorts of small brackets, sheet metal panels and lighting reflectors.

Insertion of sheet metal studs and bushes
Using a Haeger bush inserter in a range of sheet metal materials and thicknesses.

CAD/CAM
Using Radan software to 3D model complex and simple sheet metal work, create flat patterns and tool items with full production programs for laser cutting and CNC punching.

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New spot welding capabilities are being added to our plant list in early 2015
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Creating a sheet metal box in CAD/CAM software

Wednesday, December 24th, 2014

I have shown above the main stages we go through in creating a simple folded sheet metal box in 3D software, develop the flat pattern and tool it ready for CNC punching. The stages are taken in producing a programmed part ready for CNC laser cutting and we can swap parts from machine to machine to suit the design of part and importantly to suit the flow of orders on any particular machine. Most of these stages are only a few clicks of a mouse so a component as simple as this can be developed ready for CNC punching within a few minutes with the correct cut size to bend back up to the box required. We use Radan sheet metal software for this process being one of the best you can buy.

Sawing aluminium extrusions

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

Panda 400 sawing unit

Typical aluminium extrusion sawn up to length. We can saw up aluminium angles, bars, rod, box section and customer cross sections such as these parts.

The saw blade rotates at a very high speed enabling us to was through aluminium sections with little or no burr after cutting eliminating the need for de-burring operation.

Sections up to 6M can be handled with this saw.

Sawing aluminium extrusions

Aluminium sheet metal welded fabrications

Monday, December 22nd, 2014

3D WELDED JOINT

Sheet metal 3D model of an aluminium enclosure and cover

This sheet metal fabrication project for several different LED display cases started with a 3D model created in Radan sheet metal CAD/CAM software. All the information for the size of the cases, material thickness and holes positions was taken from our customers 2D DXF drawings. We used many of the inbuilt features within the Radan software to speed up the handling of corner conditions for preparing the joints ready for welding fabrication. We could even try the fit of the cover on the body of the cases, alignment of fixing holes and the ease of inserting the bushes and studs within the software to ensure they would fit once manufactured, welded and powder coated.

Folded housing joint ready for welding

Folded aluminium sheet metal cases

Once the 3D model had been unfolded and tooled up and a sheet nest created within the software a CNC program was prepared that was used to laser cut the cases from sheets of 2mm thick 5251 aluminium alloy sheet. The cases were folded up on one of our Edwards Pearson 2.5M long CNC press brakes and you can see just how well the software can calculate the size of the developed blank so that it can be folded up without any gaps in the welded seam. The 3D model was created with the correct overlap of gauges at the joint needed by the welders as a weld preparation to enable the weld bead to penetrate the material gauge for a strong seam weld. The larger the component or more expensive the material the more of an advantage it is to be able to go straight into manufacturing without any trials and wasting materials with samples and CNC program adjustments.

Welding aluminium housing

TiG welding the aluminium cases corner joints

Unfortunately it’s very difficult to show clearly someone TiG welding due to the brightness of the light given off when the welding arc is struck on the parent metal. You do get a good idea of the processes needed to weld the joints from this image and the others shown here. The welder can only view the welding process through a special glass shield within the welding helmet that is light sensitive and can react to the brightness created of the weld arc darkening the glass and protecting the welders eyes during the whole welding fabrication process.

Welded aluminium housing

Aluminium sheet metal welded fabrication corner joints

When the welding is being carried out it’s important to penetrate through the gauge of the aluminium to get a strong joint. It’s also necessary in this case as the fabricated joints have to be cleaned off smooth and if the welder doesn’t penetrate right through the joint all the weld strength would be removed when the outside of the joint is ground back which could lead to cracks appearing after fabrication. Although the weld looks messy at this stage it will be perfect once it has been cleaned off as the image shows in the final manufacturing stage.

Cleaned up welded joint

Cleaning up aluminium welded joints

Once all 4 corners joints were welded they could be cleaned up to produce a smooth finish. At this stage they have been ground down to the parent metal and then they will have an orbital sanded finish before being powder coated with then no visible joint lines seen at all. If you have an aluminium sheet metal welded fabrication project that you need manufacturing please give us a call and we will be happy to price it up for you.

Laser cutting sheet metal with a Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser

Sunday, December 21st, 2014

Fast Tube by Casper

The speed of a Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser is very impressive when cutting thin sheet metal. Here in this video it’s laser cutting 0.9mm zintec coated mild steel sheet which will be used to manufacture support brackets and gear chassis components for the pumping industry. These particular sheet metal brackets did not need any edge de-burring after laser cutting with compressed air due to the clean edge that is produced. Along with the ability to use the whole sheet right up to the edges on all 4 sides it helps to produce very cost effective cutting and therefore cheaper components.

As well the the machines ability to laser cut thin gauges very quickly and use up as much of the material as possible to produce components the time taken to change from 1 job to another is only minutes given a great flexibility when it comes to small batches of work or prototyping for customers new designs.

Bending sheet metal work with a Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake

Sunday, December 21st, 2014

Bending sheet metal work with a Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake in Fareham, Hampshire, UK

Fast Tube by Casper

Sheet metal work can be worked in many different ways with a range of manual and computer (CNC) controlled machinery. These small sheet metal components are gear trays designed to hold all the electrical control gear for industrial light fittings. They have been CNC punched out and CNC bend with equipment in our manufacturing factory in Fareham, Hampshire, UK.

You can see how quickly a machine like this can form bends in a sheet metal component and within a few seconds many bends have been formed and the component is finished. With set up times of just a few minutes between each component type this type of manufacturing is flexible when producing lots of different sheet metal work during each day.

If you have a sheet metal work project that needs to have components bent up there is a good chance that we will be able to help you with the range of sheet metal bending machines that we have here. Please give us a call of send in your drawings for us to quote you.

Laser cutting sheet metal CNC nests

Sunday, December 21st, 2014

Laser cutting sheet metal nests produced with Radan sheet metal software.

Laser cutting CNC nest

Without the need for CNC tooling a laser cutter can cut any shape and nest the close together to save material. Although not show here if we are running several jobs together from the same material and gauge we can fit the onto a single sheet and even within a part with a large open interior area such as this ring.

Laser cutting CNC nest

No matter whatever strange shape your design might need don’t be put off because we can probably laser cut it for you whether it’s in mild steel, stainless steel, aluminium, copper, brass, galvanised steel or zintec. Using Radan sheet metal software with our Trumpf 3030 3KW fibre laser is the perfect combination for controlling the design shape and the best fit from any sheet we have in stock or can buy in.

If you have a sheet metal component and you want us to laser cut it please don’t hesitate to give us a call or send a drawing to us and we will work out a competitive price for you.

CNC punching sheet metal light fittings

Friday, December 19th, 2014

CNC punching sheet metal light fitting components

Fast Tube by Casper

Trumpf CNC punch presses can be so flexible when producing thin gauge sheet metal components. These thin gauge zintec coated mild steel sheet metal panels are part of a flood light fitting cover plate. Inside each panel there is a window being cut out using a 70 x 5 rectangular tool with the waste material falling through the bed of the machine down a chute and into the waste bin. This feature on our Trumpf 3000R CNC punch press enables us to quickly remove the scrap metal without having to stop the machine or leaving it held in place with corner tags that would then need to be removed and de-burred. The advantage of this type of production method of laser cutting is the ability to form in features such as standoffs, wall spacing dimples, ventilation louvres, earth symbol stamps, electrical knockouts etc.

If you have a sheet metal component that needs manufacturing we would be happy to take a look at it for you and quote either for CNC punching or laser cutting depending on the part’s design.

Sheet metal panels and their manufacture

Thursday, December 18th, 2014

Laser cut and formed mounting plates

4mm thick mild steel panels laser cut on our Trumpf 3030 fibre laser using oxygen as the assist gas and then bent up. These panels used to be CNC punched out but due to the amount of cleaning up needed to deburr all the edges after punching this became an idea job to be moved to laser cutting when we installed our new laser cutter (Nov 2013). Many other jobs have also been moved to laser cutting if they had complex profiles and some others were left with CNC punching if they had lots of holes or any 3D features such as dimples, formed threads or ventilation louvres. That’s the advantage of having both production methods under 1 roof, we can move jobs around to suit our customers requirements and to find the best use of the technology to suit the design.

CNC punched ventilation panels

1mm thick aluminium ventilation filter holders CNC punched on our Trumpf 200 CNC punch press. These panels are typical of the type of work produced on our CNC punch presses and a batch of 50 off was perfect for the Trumpf 200. Each hole was pierced with a diameter 3mm punch and die. If the volumes get larger there will be a point when a cluster tool will become cost effective. This type of punch tool can be anywhere from 2 to 50 punches held in one tool greatly speeding up the hole perforating speed of the panel.

Zintec panels

These zintec panels have been CNC punched out, edge de-burred and then had mild steel zinc plated bushes inserted before sending off to be powder coated. All panels whether CNC punched or laser cut up to 2.5M long or even 3M long if just flat can be produced in house.

Need some sheet metal panels for a special project you have or a standard product that you manufacture, please give us a call or e-mail your drawings and we will take a look for you.

Sheet metal Laser cutting v CNC punching

Wednesday, December 17th, 2014

Quick pros and cons of laser cutting V CNC punching

For more information on laser cutting follow this link

For more information on CNC punching follow this link

CNC punching sheet metal work in Hampshire

Monday, December 15th, 2014

CNC punching stainless steel sheet metal panels in Hampshire

CNC punching stainless steel panels

A Trumpf 3000 is the perfect machine for CNC punching small to large batches of sheet metal panels. CNC punching at its simplest is a machine that can move a sheet of metal in a x and y direction and stop at a defined position and pierce a hole. The hole is pierced with a punch that is punched through the sheet and into a die to produce a slug of metal that falls into a waste bin below. There are various methods of achieving this with different tooling systems depending on the manufacturer of the CNC punch press but they all achieve the same result, a hole in a sheet of metal. As well as single holes tooling can be used to combine several holes together to produce more complex geometries and even forms in the sheet such as ventilation louvres, spacing dimples and plunged screw thread positions can be achieved with the correct tooling.

The component shown here is a large stainless steel panel being CNC punched out with a protective plastic coat left in place ready to protect the stainless surface in production whilst being bent up.

CNC punching mild steel sheet metal panels in Hampshire

CNC punched mild steel panels

In contrast to the large stainless steel panels above here we have CNC punched much smaller mild steel panels. When hundreds of small panels are wanted together they can be nested with common lines to save material and speed up the CNC punching cycle with less punching. These panels have been held within the sheet by a 0.1mm corner tag which is enough to stop them falling out but not too much so that they can be broken out leaving very little witness which can easily be deburred off after punching.

If you have a sheet metal panel and think it could be produced by CNC punching please just let us know and we will be happy to investigate for you, sort out different price breaks and even send you an image of what tooling we would use and how this would look on the final panel.

Sheet metal projects December 2014

Wednesday, December 10th, 2014

Sheet metal project December 2014

Simple zintec coated mild steel fan decks used within the heat and ventilation industry.

Once again it’s that time to take a look at what sheet metal projects are going through our factory and I can’t believe it’s December already, such a busy year. We have such a range of sheet metal projects that I am never lost to take pictures of and show off the projects we have just worked on. They may be complete one offs for customers with bespoke design projects to repeating batches of hundreds or thousands of parts. From the smallest stainless steel spring clip or angle bracket, through mild steel housings, front panels and fully welded assemblies we are always busy producing new sheet metal work for our customers. From laser cutting using a Trumpf 3030 fibre laser (new 2013) and CNC punching to bending sheet metal work up to 2.5M long and welding along with many ancillary production operations (take a look at our plant list pages) we have all your sheet metal needs covered.

Sheet metal project December 2014

Aluminium enclosures for the LED display industry

These bespoke aluminium enclosure housings and covers were laser cut from 2mm thick aluminium and the folded up. They are shown here before being welded up and cleaned off. These enclosures house all the electronics for LED display boards. All the outer profiles and hole positions were set out in a 3D model created in Radan 3D sheet metal software enabling us to check the fit of the main housing and front as well as all the hole positions before cutting any metal work.

Sheet metal project December 2014

Mild steel brackets for the electrical switchgear industry

These mild steel brackets have been produced on our Trumpf 3000 CNC punch press. The brackets have M3 and M4 threads tapped into the 3mm thick mild steel parent metal. The Trumpf 3000 has the ability to form threads directly into a pre punched pilot hole. We have several tapping modules to cover the range of standard thread sizes making it a much faster and cost competitive operation than using a standard tapping head in a pillar drill. These brackets were then folded up on our Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes using standard press brake tooling.

Should you require any sheet metal work in the new year please give us a call or send over your drawings and we will be happy to help you.

Folded Sheet Metal Work

Thursday, December 4th, 2014

Folded sheet metal work

These mild steel housings covers have been manufactured as blanks on one of our Trumpf CNC punch presses. The have then been formed up with a curved shaped tool and then all the 90 degree bends have been added using a Trumpf 7036 CNC press brake. They are pictured here stacked up waiting to be sent to the powder coaters to be painted before going off to the customers to be assembled onto a larger housing that we make. The pattern created here is an efficient way to stack the covers and happens to make quite an attractive image as well.

Folded mild steel sheet metal work

Lovely image of the covers all stacked together. This batch of work was about 500 covers and suited perfectly our CNC punching and CNC bending capacity. We can make sheet metal components anywhere from single samples, through to repeating batches of several hundred to larger batches and call off orders of thousands. With CNC sheet metal manufacturing plant the ability to change tooling quickly lends the process to adaption to each design without the need for expensive dedicated tooling. This has enabled us to manufacture sheet metal components that would have needed expensive dedicated tooling not that many years ago and today we just write a CNC program for a laser cutter, CNC punch press or CNC press brake and move straight to production.

Formed mild steel sheet metal work

Here’s a more detailed view of the folded end tabs on the covers. It’s a great example of just how flexible sheet metal design can be with one single sheet of metal being formed around a curve and folded in many different ways. With this type of manufacturing we can adapt the CNC programs and hence the part whenever a design change is needed quickly with little or no cost to you the customer.

If you have a design that needs folded sheet metal work please give us a call or e-mail your drawings and we will be happy to take a look for you.

CNC punching sheetmetal work

Monday, December 1st, 2014

CNC punching sheetmetal work in Fareham, Hampshire

CNC punching stainless steel sheetmetal

One of our CNC punch presses being used to punch out 1.2mm thick 304 stainless steel sheetmetal panels. This particular CNC punch press is a Trumpf 3000R which can punch holes and forms all over a 2.5M x 1.25M sheetmetal panel without having to re-position the clamps. This helps to maintain positional accuracy of large sheetmetal components and saves time within the machine cycle.

CNC punching zintec mild steel sheetmetal

CNC punched sheetmetal chassis housing blanks for pumping units. These parts have been stacked 2 sheets thick ready to be broken out from their punched sheet nests. The sheetmetal is Zintec, a zinc coated mild steel which is often used in internal sheetmetal components within the electronics and lighting industry.

CNC punching sheetmetal work

Sheetmetal mild steel connector panels produced on our Trumpf 3000R CNC punch press. This sheet of components shows really nicely how useful it is to be able to common line cut to save material and time with shared CNC punching of profile slitting using a 70.0mm long x 5.0mm rectangular wide punch tool.

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