Location tags for welding fabrications
When we are welding just a few parts for a sheet metal project it’s easy to hold parts together either by hand or with a range of clamps. This is perfect and can produce more than acceptable results and dimensional accuracy. Similarly if the parts to be welded are quite complex or many different parts are being welded together to create a fabricated assembly we might make up a bespoke welding jig with positions of different parts fixed and allowance for shrinkage built into the weld jig. Sometimes the parts are in sufficient volumes to mean we do not want someone helping the welder but a full welding jig would be over the top, this is when the idea of building in location tags is perfect. The tags can be at the edge of a component such as the one shown above or tags into slots when more than one component are being welded together.
The advantages of sheet metal fabrications using built in tags in the sheet metal parts for production are many. The accuracy can be guaranteed by the CNC punch or CNC laser program using programs like Radan sheet metal design software, the design can be such that parts cannot be assembled the wrong way round by off set tag positions and tag sizes and the tags can be puddle welded to remove any sign that they have been used by us in production so the customer only receives a part to drawing with production assembly witnesses.
Perhaps you have a sheet metal welding project that might need TiG or MiG welding in ferrous or non-ferrous metal, please call us on 01489 577786 or send us your design ideas to sales@vandf.co.uk and our engineering team will be happy to take a look and suggest methods to save time and money in production where possible.