The Fabricator October 2016

Ironworkers are the quintessial fabricating tool. They are an uncomplicated device that can quickly provide a bend, punch, or shear when needed. With the introduction of CNC, an ironworker can become a much more modern piece of machinery, perhaps opening the door to a new world of heavy fabricating.

Whether your company is preparing for growth, a slowdown, a process upgrade, or hiring new workers, FABTECH brings together every aspect of the metal fabricating industry in one location to educate, inform, entertain, and provide networking opportunities to you.

When opportunity called, Navy veteran and barbecue grill fabricator Fred Moss was ready and willing to answer.

SALSCO Inc. is a product manufacturer that has a lot in common with job shops: At any one time it has 250 line items of different components on its shop floor for its 38 different products. To stay on top of production demands, it needs all of its plasma cutting capacity. That's why it hurt when tables were taken offline for routine cleaning or fetching of parts that fell between the grates. Company President Salvatore J. Rizzo thought there could be a better way and designed a modular base that allows the plasma cutting table to cut while parts and debris are constantly removed from the bottom of the table.

Two blast room products aim to minimize the non-value-added time in manual blast cleaning.

As parts become more complicated and our machines get more sophisticated and precise, there is a real need to be much more precise in our trade-related language.

Columnist Gerald Davis considers techniques for adding parametric harness connections to models.

Cybersecurity expert Steve Douglas shares his thoughts on why metal fabricators need to pay attention to just how they are protecting their internal information and files. Shops may not think they are targets, and that's when they are at their most vulnerable.

Managers need to delegate. Delegation helps employees learn new skills and allows a business to grow. But delegation isn’t easy, and these six steps should help managers overcome the challenges.

As manufacturers look for the manufacturing engineers and machine operators to replace retiring baby boomers, they are finding that traditional recruitment efforts are lacking. Many find that it’s easier to groom their own workers rather than hoping that they turn up on the doorstep.

This year’s “Financial Ratios & Operational Benchmarking Survey” from the FMA shows an industry that’s facing tight competition, but also one that is pushing on, investing, and making efficient use of resources.

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists recently recommended a tenfold decrease in exposure limits for manganese, which are present in welding fumes. This is big news because OSHA typically uses these recommendations as the basis for future regulation updates. Big changes could be coming for metal fabricators

Modern plasma systems can do more than just cut. They can gouge, mark, remove welds, and more. And this applies whether plasma processing occurs using a hand-held torch or a machine torch mounted on a CNC table, robotic arm, or automated track.

Plate and angle rolling remains extremely dependent on operator skill. According to a U.S. roll shop roundtable discussion held at a Davi angle rolling event in Italy, that skill really is what sets a custom rolling operation apart.