Any metal fabrication project starts with a design. Having a design can take a metal fabrication project from visualisation to reality. However, it is vital to ensure that a piece of design is easy to be translated into a desired metal product.
To improve the product quality and overall output, there are ways to optimise a metal fabrication design. This optimisation process can be done before the actual metal fabrication begins. To help metal fabricators, here is a blog post about the 7 crucial ways to optimize the design for any metal fabrication projects.
1. Choose the right metal fabrication service provider
Having enough experience, excellent customer service and good quality of work are necessary characteristics to have when choosing a right metal fabrication vendor. Moreover, it’s ideal to opt for a metal fabricator that offers designing services and in-house engineering. Those fabrication companies with specialised engineers can give valuable recommendations about the design and offer tips in producing quality metal products that work.
2. Involve the metal fabricator in the initial process
After choosing the metal fabricator, get them involved in the early design process. By doing this, the fabricator can help in providing necessary feedback for the best material to be used. They can even give minor alterations for the design to ensure that it is ready for fabrication.
3. Remove unnecessary details on the design
The designing stage can be crucial in the metal fabrication process. Thus, it is important to consider every detail of the layout. A detailed design is the foundation of high-quality metal fabrication. However, unnecessary and ambiguous details can cause delays in the fabrication process. It can also mislead the metal fabricator. This can result in more potential problems in the future.
Thus, it is suggested to ask help from the metal fabricator. This is for you to determine which design details are necessary and which are not.
4. Choose the right material to work with
The selection of materials for the metal fabrication project has an impact on its design, resistance to heat and durability. The type of material for metal fabrication can also affect the costs of the project. Hence, choosing the right material is essential to produce high-quality yet affordable products.
When it comes to metal fabrication, there are huge varieties of material to choose from. But the most popular choices are steel and aluminium. This is because these types of materials are durable and have corrosive-resistant qualities. To make sure whether the material suits the design, better to ask your the vendor for advices.
5. Choose the right manufacturer for the materials needed
Since the choice of material has a great impact on the design and quality of the project, it’s also crucial to know where to purchase the best materials to be used. The metal fabricator tend to consider buying the materials directly from its local metal manufacturer/supplier because of various benefits.
The metal manufacturer, for instance, can provide a wide array of choices when it comes to metal fabrication materials. They can provide the quality metal suited for the design of the product. Apart from that, they can offer the best price for the materials needed.
6. Consider the fabrication techniques
In every fabrication project, it is necessary to know how the metal fabricator will work on the design of the product. Through understanding the process, a cost-effective and durable design can be created.
Basically, there are different kinds of techniques used in fabricating sheet metals. The most common techniques used nowadays are listed below:
- Punching – in this technique, metal is usually placed between a punch and a die with the same shape. To create a hole in the sheet metal, the punch is pressed into the die.
- Stamping – this technique uses male and female dies which helps in forming the metal into your desired shape.
- Cutting – this method is done with the use of cutting tools. These tools include plasmas, lasers, water jets or even tin snips. Probably, it is the most essential process in metal fabrication. This is because it is hard to create things out of sheet metal without cutting them.
- Bending- in this technique press brakes are used to bend the sheet metals into desired shapes. Metals can be formed into V-shapes, channel shapes or U-shapes.
- Roll forming- it is the continuous bending of long strip metal to form its desired cross-section. This process is better than stamping and punching because it can reduce scrap and drop-off through coil-fed processing.
7. Test the design before the production
There may be times where the design works well in theory, but not in real-world conditions. So to figure out whether the product meets its specification, it is suggested to test the design first. This is to ensure if the design translates well into the desired product.
Furthermore, to test if the design works well before the production, metal fabricators usually can provide prototypes and 3D models.
Conclusion
Optimising the design for metal fabrication is an intricate process. But with the right tools, enough skills and hands-on expertise, a useful design can be created. Without doubt, the 7 crucial ways to optimise the design for metal fabrication projects that are stated above should be taken into consideration.
If you need further information regarding metal fabrication, you may contact your trusted local fabricator. They can provide good and quality services when it comes to metal fabrication.
