What is Metal Fabrication?
Metal manufacturing is a kind of metal material processing into articles, parts, and components of the process technology.
Metal fabricators are employed for this purpose, and they shape the metal by welding, bending, burning, cutting, and assembling it into the required final product.
Metal Fabrication Process
- Design: In this process, a computer-aided design is used to generate a 3D product prototype based on the specifications of the client. The metal fabrication design process helps to predict and detect any loopholes and issues before delving into full-scale production. After the approval of the materials to be used, the fabrication process begins.
- Fabrication: The fabrication techniques are used for this process so that the client’s specifications are met in the final product.
- Finishing: This process ensures that the machining parts are usable, stable, presentable, and ready to be used. The quality of the raw materials and the level of expertise of the personnel participating in the metal fabrication process are determinants of the finished appearance of any product made from metal fabrication.
Types of Metal Fabrication
- Metal Casting: This is the heating of metal until it reaches its melting point, then afterward, pouring it into an empty cavity mold that has a particular design. After pouring into the mold, the metal is left for a while to cool and harden before it is subject to the post-processing stage. This post-processing stage involves the removal of all minor defects to achieve a perfectly finished product.
- Cutting: There are different methods of cutting, and they include sawing(which ranks as the oldest), plasma arc cutting, laser cutting, power scissors, waterjet cutting, etc.
- Folding: Metal folding is a process used to shape sheet metals. It involves the manipulation of metals to bend at a particular angle. It is also an old technique of metal fabrication which is quite similar to cutting.
- Forging: This process requires the use of compression force to press, bend, or shape the metals in question into the desired form. Metal forging can be cold forging, which involves the metal being worked on at room temperature, or warm forging, which involves heating the metal to a range varying from the temperature above room temperature to the temperature below the recrystallization temperature.
- Machining: The process of metal fabrication through machining involves shaping the metal into its desired shape through the removal of unwanted materials from it. This is done in numerous ways, and some of them include milling, drilling, turning, etc.
- Welding: Welding is a common sheet metal fabrication process that uses heat and pressure to fuse together multiple metal parts. This process is independent of the size and shape of the metals involved. Examples of the various types of welding include Flux Cored Arc Welding, Stick or Arc Welding, TIG Welding, and MIG Welding.
Material of Metal Fabrication
- Iron: This is a chemical material that is not only the most popular on earth when judging by mass, but it is also in excess. It is important in the production of steel fabrication.
- Copper: This is a precision metal fabrication material that is commonly used and highly important in industrial and marine environments. It has a low resistance to electricity and a high resistance to corrosion in most environments.
- Bronze: Bronze has a far lower melting point than copper, this custom metal fabrication material is commonly used to manufacture products like a turbine, coins, cookware, armor, and weapons.
- Brass: Brass comprises zinc and copper, and this makes it possess acoustic properties. This property makes brass the best machining alloy option for casting musical instruments.
Metal Fabrication Applications
Aerospace
The production of aircraft, flights, and space crafts used in aerospace engineering involves metal fabrication for the Aircraft Parts.
Aerospace engineering caters to the designing and production of various types of precision metal fabrication.
During the production of these flights, components are fabricated, assembled, integrated, and refined by metal fabrication.
Ship Building Industry
The various equipment parts used by shipbuilding industries are built by sheet metal fabrication. Some custom ship parts developed by metal fabrication include steel sheets used for hulls, steel flooring and grating, conveyance tubing, ladders, platforms, and stairs.
Energy
Solar power generation companies, oil, and gas companies, nuclear energy companies, etc. will develop items through the process of metal fabrication.
The products that the energy industry needs include electromagnetic shields, oil and gas platforms and wells, transformer cores, pipelines, electromagnets, pipelines, transmission towers, wind turbines, and electricity power turbine components.
Construction Industries
Custom metal fabrication helps architects and engineers come up with fabricated steel products that make their work easier. Steel beams, handrails, ladders, and girders are produced for construction companies by metal fabricators.
The fabrication in the Construction Industries also helps them come up with building structures, warehouses, bridges, and other types of mega structures used by construction workers.
Mining Industry
The mining process requires the use of various tools and materials, which can only be developed through metal fabrication and fabricated steel sections.
Examples of some of these steel sections used in mining comprise fittings, rails, pipes, beams, grading, rods, beams, etc.
Examples of the tools gotten through metal fabrication include shovels, draglines, loaders, trucks, etc.
How to Choose A Metal Fabrication Company?
Quality
The quality of service to expect from any metal fabrication company you hire shouldn’t be one that can be compromised.
Having problems with quality can lead to financial losses as the product wouldn’t only pass through in-house quality tests but also the standard of the regularities authorities, whether it’s a big or small project.
Experience
The best way to know the fabrication company’s experience level is by taking into consideration the experience level of the staff working there and the type of projects they have embarked on.
If you find out that the staff or the fabrication company has not embarked on such a project before, then we wouldn’t recommend this. For example, a construction metal fabricator may not have the right knowledge to take on an aircraft project.
Financial Stability
Ensure that you check the financial stability of any metal fabrication company you are looking forward to working with. This factor is just as important as quality and experience.
This is because the product you want to work on might require this metal fabrication company to employ more workers to ensure increased productivity and try out new technologies.
Customer Service and More
The customer care of any company is proof of what the company will look like. You might not rate their customer services when you get freshly introduced to them, but one way to go about this is by talking with their past customers.
Custom Metal Fabrication Service
Having described to you the qualities you need to look for in a good metal fabrication company, we have a perfect recommendation for you! Are you in search of a precision metal fabrication company that can boast of a worthwhile experience, top-notch customer care, and a good experience portfolio? YIJIN Hardware to the rescue!
At YIJIN Hardware, you are assured of nothing but the best for all matters relating to metal fabrication services. Your final product should ooze out nothing but the best quality, and this is what YIJIN Hardware can offer you.
Conclusion
The knowledge of metal fabrication is ultimately important. Metal fabrication helps to convert raw metal materials to finished metal products like metal tools and pieces of equipment that are highly important for our day-to-day running. This is to show that basic knowledge of the metal fabrication process is highly important!
Learn More: 2023 Top 10 Metal Parts Manufacturing Companies In China
