What the differences between welding and fabrication in metal work?
..."fabrication" is the design and cutting of the metal product... "welding" is the making it all come together...
Where can I get trained in custom metal fabrication and welding?
See if you can get into the Sheet Metal Union. There is a growing shortage of manufacturing trades workers in this country. Every High School pushes kids toward college. In a trade you work while you learn. I went to school one night a week on a semester basis just like high school. The sheet metal workers at our shop are very good at metal working. From HVAC ducting to making tool lockers, they do it all. This includes welding. I attended a Tech College. Then I got a job at a machine shop due to my attendance at said Tech College. I started my apprenticeship along with 36 other guys. Four years later, 12 of us graduated. I have been a Journeyman Machinist for 20 years this past May. I too live in the Chicagoland area. Get into the apprenticeship, work hard and smart. Don't take any lip from the Journeyman. Some relish the idea that an apprentice is their personal slave and whipping boy. THEIR job is to make YOU better than they are. Period. Don't get a job where perform the same type of work over and over. To this day I am mediocre on a metal lathe due to my lack of training and time on a lathe. Tell them you want to learn and experience EVERYTHING when it comes to sheet metal work. Do not be afraid to move to a different company that will continue to train you. I changed jobs after I made sure they would continue my apprenticeship. I vastly improved my machining skills at second job. I will out earn a family member working as a white collar professional by over $30K this year. And when I competed my education, I had no school debt and had worked and earned wages for four year. I work in heavy industry. Best of Luck Max
What do steel fabricators do?
Like Robert said, it's not a simple answer. There's two types of steel fabricators. A company as a whole, and the people that do the actual fabrication. Steel fabricators build most of what you see. Buildings, “plains trains and automobiles”. Some will get that one. Chairs, tables, washing machines, fences, light poles. If it's made of metal, a steel fabricators made it.The food you eat, the water you drink, the clothes you wear, the machines that made or processed that stuff were all made by steel fabricators. Everything from the metal doors you walk through to the space shuttle. A steel fabricator made it.I'm a steel fabricators of over twenty years, we usually call our selves just welders, but will say steel fabricator to make us sound “cooler”. Oh yeh, we make those too, coolers. I my self have made everything from wrought iron gates and farm implements to military equipment, food processing machines, signs, 40 thousand gallon tanks and mixers. And one of my greatest welding achievements, I built something that is hanging in the Museum of Natural History and Science in Washington DC. I made a 40 foot replica of a northern wright whale. I have pictures of George Bush, Barac Obama, and my family, all standing in the same place under it.So if made of metal, a steel fabricator made it.
How do I learn metal fabrication?
Online resources such as YouTube can offer some insight into fabrication but, depending what you find there, results could vary. That being said, there are still many helpful videos on YouTube.Looking into metal fabrication courses at local Vocational Tech schools or colleges is probably your best course of action. If you’re serious about getting into metal fabrication it’s worth investing in.Another thing you may want to try is contacting local metal fabrication businesses and ask if they can share any advice on getting into metal fabrication. The people there had to get their start somewhere. Their experience will help them to point you in the right direction.
Cost of custom metal fabrication?
I have been slowly over the past few months been designing a battle-bot that I an hoping to enter into the 2014 Robo-Games competition (http://robogames.net). Yes i know it sounds a little ambitious, however, I have a degree in 3D CAD design and am a mechanical engineer, so I am pretty well qualified. I have a cnc machine of my own that I would use to make the chassis and other components, however the actual attack arm I would like to have made as one piece of metal, ideally titanium grade 4 or better, but I would settle for stainless steel or hardened aluminum. I do not have the equiptment to mill it properly and would like to have it professionally manufactured. I have been looking online and have yet to find a company that I am able to just send in a CAD file and get a quote. The closest I have come is emachineshop.com, however they require me to use their own version of cad software, for windows, I am on mac. So rather than go through all the hassle of VirtualBox or bootcamp i would rather leave it up to the hopefully helpful community of the great interwebs. Here is a link to my CAD file of the arm (https://www.dropbox.com/s/mbuaue3ql628z7k/Haphazard%20Spike%20v5.f3d) it is an autodesk inventor f3d file, but should be able to be opened in pretty much anything. Thanks in advance for any and all help!
Are there metal fabrication shops that rent the use of their equipment (welder, rollformer, shear, brake plasma, etc.)?
If I’m reading correctly I assume you’re asking if you can rent “time” in a fab shop - pay an hourly or daily rate to use their equipment and facility. If I got it right then answer is typically no. Most working shops, for a variety of reasons, wouldn’t allow it - you’re going to get in the way, break / abuse expensive equipment and I’m sure there’s ins liability issues. The liability for injury alone is enough to make it a non - starter for any shop owner.What you’re prob looking for is coop shop - they’re built and in business for the purpose of giving artists, small businesses, crafts people and the like access to space and tools they need for their work can not afford to buy outright. Depending on where you live their might be a handful or none with hundreds of miles. That said, IMO they’re not well advertised and you’ve got to seek these situations out on boards like Iforge & Practical Machinist.OTOH, if you’re looking rent portable equipment like welders most big box stores like HD & Lowes rent equipment.
What is the contrast between fabrication and welding?
Fabrication is making something and welding is just one operation performed during that process.Welding is basically joining two pieces of metal together: No design, layout, cutting, forming, or machining(yet another trade).Welders and fabricators are separate trades where I live in BC but among experienced workers there is often a lot of overlap in skills: Welders do some fabrication and fabricators can weld.Even with the skill overlap in experienced workers, I don't generally trust welders to do complicated layout or forming work or fabricators to do difficult welds...at least not quickly.
What is a metal worker called ?
maybe, a smith...