In every household, you can find appliances and tools that are made thanks to different metal fabrication processes. Each process requires refined skill, reliable machinery, and an attentive fabricator. With the right resources, metalworkers can achieve cuts, drills, or folds on some of the strongest materials. Kaka Industrial assesses the different types of metal fabrication processes that you’re likely to utilize as a metalworker.
Cutting
Perhaps the most used fabrication process, cutting splits sheet metal into desired sections. Cuts can be achieved with various machinery, from lasers to plasma torches.
Metalworkers cut nearly everything, including fresh sheet metal that has yet to be formed into something, pre-shaped bars, and measured panels. Cutting is a skill that fabricators learn early on and use with regularity.
Shearing
Shearing and cutting are similar in that both types of metal fabrication processes are designed to separate materials. Shearing, however, is the process used for long cuts.
When shearing, you’re likely to either use a metal-cutting machine or use a cutting tool vertically against the length of the sheet metal. There’s an additional method to shearing that involves a machine much like a paper cutter, in that you raise a splicing lever over the metal and bring it down to achieve a precise cut.
Folding
A fairly complicated fabrication process, folding manipulates metals at a specific angle. Folding can only be performed at facilities with the appropriate high-tech equipment that enables folding operations. For metalworking facilities that do not obtain this equipment, joining two metals at the desired angle is a feasible alternative.
Welding
Welding joins two separate metal parts together. Welders can fix any parts to one another as long as they’re both metal. There are tons of welding methods and tools to choose from to weld your metals together.
Using extreme heat at the point of metal connection, you can weld two metal components together for any fabrication project. Welding is another highly popular metalworking process that craft enthusiasts also enjoy.
Punching
The punching process results in holes in fabrication metal. Metal is secured under a die and undergoes a punch-through from a drill.
Holes are often needed in metalworking to attach latches or other additional metal fixtures or to extract a smaller bit from a large metal panel. Most fabrication shops are equipped with durable vertical bench drill machines to achieve accurate punches.