Jeffrey Dean

Power hammers are pieces of equipment that hark back to the earliest days of metal fabricating. Today’s power hammers allow fabricators to lean on the technology, not purely on brawn, to deliver the shaping blows. While power hammers are not found in many precision sheet metal shops, many operations do employ them. In fact, they are a key part of the operation.

Bike-making may represent a potential business opportunity for skilled metal fabricators looking to diversify their businesses. Several bike-makers discuss how they got into the business and how they build their bicycles.

The customer is not always right if it means a shop has no chance of earning money--even with a long-term perspective--while trying to meet the customer's expectations. In these cases, it's easier to have a difficult conversation with the customer before venturing down the path of future unprofitability.

Delivering a large fabrication in some ways is almost as difficult as creating the piece in the first place. In many instances, the fabrication is awkward in shape and a challenge to move even a short distance. Like everything else, fabricators figure out how to do it, and these are their stories.