Sheet Metal Drawing DON’Ts

We received a request from a reader that wanted us to touch base on two very common sheet metal drawing mistakes. So we have created this blog post to strictly focus on these issues. When it comes to mechanical engineering and actual sheet metal fabrication, there are a couple grey areas that engineers should know about if they have never fabricated sheet metal. One has to deal with flat patterns and the other is sheet metal bend deductions. Continue reading

Manufacturing Prints – View Types

Whether you are learning about engineering, manufacturing, or just need to brush up on your knowledge of dimensional prints, how to read a manufacturing prints is absolutely critical when it comes to fabricating a part. So to start with the basics, let’s ask the question, why do you need prints or drawings to manufacture a part? The sole purpose of prints is for visualization. It’s very difficult to have words explain what is required for a part. For example, if someone said “I want to make a 3 x 2 x 2 rectangle with one corner cut off of the rectangle and a hole through the center,” you would have many questions just based on this short description which seems like it should be fairly easy to understand. However, this description doesn’t describe  the angle of the “cut off corner” and the exact location and size of the hole. The fabricator has to be able to fully visualize what the part needs to look like. In addition, drawings act as manufacturing instructions which include the dimensions, material type, and finish of the part. Prints are also used for verification once the part has been fabricated. The manufacturer will check the dimensions which should match perfectly with the print. Continue reading

How To Join Metal Without Welding

In manufacturing, there are several ways to achieve a desired outcome of fabricating a part depending on the resources and material available. For today’s post, we will discuss how to join metal without welding. Welding alone is an art, especially if quality welding is needed. It takes experience and expertise to achieve a good quality weld. Not only is a skilled welder needed, but also the welding supplies. Not everyone has all these resources, so knowing how to join metal without welding can come in handy. It’s valuable to know other ways of achieving the same outcome since other ways may be less time consuming and also cost less. Continue reading

What is Sheet Metal?

Aluminum sheet metal chassisHere at VIP we have a wide range of customers that we work with. Some of which are not familiar with metal manufacturing and what metal manufacturing entails. So we’ve decided to do a brief on the topic of sheet metal. You will see that sheet metal isn’t as foreign to us as you may think because we use sheet metal products on a daily basis! So let’s get started…. Continue reading