FSI Fabrication makes products that help farmers quickly and accurately transport feed, grain, and other material.

High-power diode lasers are just beginning to make an impact on welding applications. They are also physically smaller than other lasers, and their initial capital cost is not as large as it might be for traditional welding lasers because diode lasers have fewer system components.

For the end user of an abrasive waterjet, sometimes the maintenance involved with the new machine is underestimated. The downtime due to maintenance can result in decreased return on investment. To remain profitable, an owner must factor in costs associated with maintenance.

Bad welds can be traced back to poor workmanship, poor design, or a little of both.

Columnist Gerald Davis delves into why top-down design might be useful when modeling a metal fabrication in 3-D CAD.

Equations help leveler operators significantly reduce the traditional trial and error during setup.

Modern press brakes add intelligence to the machine control and bring programming offline.

When fabricators decide to automate material handling in their laser cutting operations, they have several choices to make. The decision on whether to automate—and what kind of system makes the most sense—will depend on the shop's capabilities, its production capacity, and available floor space. The options cover the full spectrum, from basic systems that simply unload one pallet and bring in another to large racking systems that maintain a full inventory of raw material and cut parts and can transfer those parts to other machines in the shop.

Overseas, metal fabricators have many of the same issues as those stateside, including lack of skilled labor and outsourcing to low-labor-cost countries. In Japan, fabricators tackle those issues by taking automation to new levels.

Because of thermal distortion, a laser- or plasma-cut part may not perfectly flat. Here, parts leveling helps ensure parts maintain and exceed their flatness requirements.