Blog - Page 13 of 22 -

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.

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.

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