Every project we work through in our shop demands exacting specifications and top-notch precision. This is especially true in fabricating large-scale parts, where the smallest inaccuracy can have significant repercussions.
Metal Fabrication Professionals has the in-house capabilities to handle large sheet metal with quality and precision. To handle large components with the greatest efficiency, we purchased game-changing laser cutting technology to level up our operations.
To cement our position as experts in large sheet metal cutting, MFP invested in a 20-foot Bystronic laser cutter to complement our 20-foot press brake. Let’s delve into the significant benefits this advanced machinery offers our customers.
The Value of 20-Foot Laser Cutting
Laser cutters that can cut sheets up to 20 feet long are not common in the industry. Shops that don’t have 20-foot lasers can still cut large pieces, but their process isn’t exactly ideal. They would likely need to laser cut smaller sheets and weld them together to reach their desired length.
At Metal Fabrication Professionals, we decided to invest in our 20-foot laser cutter because we saw the value of cutting large sheets in a single process. Here are some of the major benefits our customers can experience when we drop these weld seams:
Cost Savings
By laser cutting these large pieces in one process, we’re effectively removing the need for labor-intensive welding or multiple setups. Anytime we can remove an operation, it substantially lowers our labor costs and we pass these cost savings to our customers.
Shorter Lead Times
Welding can be manual and time-consuming. By removing the welding process we eliminate an operation queue, a manual operation and additional weld quality checks. Your large sheet metal products can flow directly from our laser to our press brake, saving precious time. This translates to shorter lead times that allow our customers to meet tighter project deadlines more effectively.
Higher Quality
Welding sheets together introduces unnecessary heat stress into the product and can lead to unintentional warping. To avoid this, welders must straighten the welded sheets; however, this is also far from ideal, as this process introduces additional cold work stress into the material. When welding two laser-cut sheets together, retaining the positional relationship between the features on each segment can be difficult with a weld in between.
Cutting large flat patterns in one setup (therefore removing any welding processes) gives us more control over the dimensional accuracy of your large sheet metal parts.
20-Foot Laser Cutting vs. Other 20-Foot Sheet Metal Cutting Methods
When cutting large sheets, why would a customer benefit from our 20-foot laser over our 20-foot plasma?
Laser vs. Plasma Cutting
While a typical plasma table can cut 20-foot parts, the cut quality doesn’t compare to that of a laser cutter. Plasma cutting will oftentimes leave slag behind on the surface edges that need to be cleaned up with grinders, chipping hammers and other abrasive tools. Additionally, laser cutters can achieve much smaller holes than plasma cutters, a crucial feature that makes laser cutting the preferred choice for high-quality, precision parts.
20-Foot Sheet Metal Forming
Many projects seamlessly transition from the 20-foot laser to our 20-foot press brake. This machine offers excellent precision and repeatability, thanks to its CNC-driven capabilities.
Our 20-foot press brake has segmented tooling, a game-changer that allows us to perform different bending steps in a single piece flow, reducing the need to batch parts between setups and streamlining the overall bending process.
Metal Fabrication Professionals, Your One-Stop Shop for 20-Foot Laser Cutting and Forming
Having both a 20-foot laser cutter and a 20-foot press brake in our shop further demonstrates our one-stop shop operations. We have the capability to cut and form large pieces with the utmost efficiency, without needing to send parts out or add extra processes that could drive up production time.
Do you have large-scale parts that need to be cut and/or formed? Request a quote today to find out how our 20-foot laser cutter and 20-foot press brake can produce the quality results you need with the efficient lead times you hope for.