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The Fabricator April 2016
The Fabricator is North America's leading magazine for the metal forming and fabricating industry. The magazine delivers the news, technical articles, and case histories that enable fabricators to do their jobs more efficiently. The Fabricator has served the industry since 1970.
Applications: Deburring machinery improves quality, speed in flame-cut part production
Situation Eisen- und Stahlhandel Straub GmbH, a family-owned company based in Lichtenau, Germany, processes more than 4,000 tons of steel per month. The core business is cutting and bending concrete reinforcement steel and cutting, drilling, and sandblasting steel profiles. The company also...
Shop technology and 3-D CAD: A review of animation tools to improve the work flow for moviemaking
- By Gerald Davis
- Apr 18, 2016
- Shop Management
- Article
Columnist Gerald Davis reviews methods for creating animations. The use of dedicated software is discussed.
Saying “yes” to complex projects has benefits
- By Bryan Elmore and Edward Dunn Jr.
- Apr 14, 2016
- Shop Management
- Article
Fabricating operations interested in taking on more complex projects now have additional motivation: The R&D Tax Credit is permanent and could pay off for those companies involved in solving manufacturing problems.
Big-league metal fabrication
- By Tim Heston
- Apr 13, 2016
- Shop Management
- Article
In September 2015 contract fabricator BTD expanded to the Southeast with its purchase of Impulse Manufacturing. The deal hints at just how scalable custom metal fabrication may be.
Formable aluminum: Press brake bending 6061 with the 20% rule
- By Steve Benson
- Apr 13, 2016
- Bending and Forming
- Article
Areas to consider for formable aluminum are formability, thickness and bend radius, tensile, yield, and elongation, and how to deal with bending tempered materials. Learn more here.
FMA Annual Meeting: Navigating into metal fabricating’s future
- By Dan Davis and Tim Heston
- Apr 13, 2016
- Shop Management
- Article
This year’s FMA Annual Meeting, held in San Diego in February, celebrated the technology companies need to compete and the worker skill shops need to sustain that success through the generations.
Laser cutting in a new light
- By Dan Davis
- Apr 13, 2016
- Laser Cutting
- Article
In the past, lighting manufacturers introduced product designs that might last 10 years. Because of the lengthy product lifetime and volumes, these manufacturers didn't think twice about relying on hard tooling. Today product designs change regularly, and the constant evolution of LED technology means a manufacturer has to react quickly. For TAMCO, Port St. Lucie, Fla., that meant it needed its own laser cutting capability.
Demand variation: Challenge or opportunity in custom metal fabrication
- By Jeff Sipes
- Apr 4, 2016
- Shop Management
- Article
For custom fabricators, demand variation is a fact of life, but this doesn’t mean that a shop can’t mitigate its effect. Lean consultant Jeff Sipes describes several options that can help make life easier, even for shops that deal with extreme shifts in demand.
Offline robotic welding programming evolves
- By Tim Heston
- Apr 4, 2016
- Automation and Robotics
- Article
Learn how several years ago Groupe Gravel invested in robotic welding programming and plasma cutting and now they program welds in the virtual world.
Head and optics innovations key to laser cutting growth
- By Dru Schwartz
- Apr 4, 2016
- Laser Cutting
- Article
Today a fiber laser can cut both thick and thin material efficiently and with good edge quality. Key advances in laser optics and cutting head design have helped make this possible.
How one fabricator maintains quality in bending
- By Dan Davis
- Mar 31, 2016
- Bending and Forming
- Article
DeWys Manufacturing, Marne, Mich., used to rely on quality personnel running all over the plant to check parts, but that caused downtime as people waited for the quality check. As the company explored lean manufacturing and refined its training process, it sought to make quality the job of everyone, not just a select few. The results of this thinking are particularly evident in the press brake department.
How fabricators manage machining
- By Tim Heston
- Mar 31, 2016
- Machining
- Article
These days certain custom fabrication operations have in-house machining capabilities. How these capabilities are managed depends on a company’s location, access to talent, and customer demands. The FABRICATOR talked with managers at two custom fabricators, each of which takes a distinct approach to managing its machining operations.
What brings youth to the sheet metal business?
- By Tim Heston
- Mar 31, 2016
- Shop Management
- Article
How can a fab shop bring talented youth into the fold? Two members of FMA’s Young Professionals’ Council tell what sparked their interest--and it isn’t what you might expect.
Welding for oil: This bust shall pass
- By Gerry Timms
- Mar 30, 2016
- Arc Welding
- Article
Odessa, Texas, has changed. In 2014 traffic was a nightmare; now, not so much. At the heart of the Permian Basin, Odessa is feeling the brunt of the oil and gas bust.
The next generation of portable beveling
- By Rohan B. Raut
- Mar 30, 2016
- Power Tools
- Article
Weld prep is an unheralded but necessary activity for those working with heavy plate. Portable beveling technology has emerged that may make life a little easier for the fabricator looking to deliver high-quality weld joints.
- Podcasting
- Podcast:
- The Fabricator Podcast
- Published:
- 04/16/2024
- Running Time:
- 63:29
In this episode of The Fabricator Podcast, Caleb Chamberlain, co-founder and CEO of OSH Cut, discusses his company’s...
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