Kip Hanson

Manufacturing overall and especially sheet-metal fabrication is a noble, most excellent trade, one that helps to keep our homes warm, our cars safe, our daily chores more enjoyable. Simply put, it’s darned important to modern society. Explore some of the ways you can be successful in your fabrication career. Change things up to success in manufacturing As with many things in life, success in manufacturing is about embracing change.

Compared to even a few decades ago, manufacturing of all forms has become decidedly high-tech. Where cranks were once turned and levers pulled, a button is now pushed. And often, the machine controller can take care of that step, too. Machines are getting smarter as well, and more connected than a teenager with an Instagram account.

Fabricating is a broad term. If you make formed-metal parts for refrigerators and late-model Chevys, you’re a fabricator. If you climb tall buildings to weld together hunks of structural steel weighing more than a recreational vehicle, you’re a fabricator. Spend your days bending pipe for jungle gyms? Cutting anti-slip tread plates and expanded metal for screen doors?

If you ever sat in the back of the classroom making paper airplanes while the teacher droned on about geometry, Babylonian history, or some other equally boring topic, congratulations! You’re a fabricator. The manufacturing technology just mentioned is called folding, but instead of using human fingers, a folding machine uses ones made of super hard and wear-resistant steel.

Back when machine tools were controlled manually, their operators had burly biceps and shoulders like football players from cranking handles and pulling levers all day. Yes, even the men. Today, most machine tools are so easy to operate that even your Great Aunt Sally could do it. That’s because they, like everything else in modern life, are now computerized.

Can’t wait to slice into a piece of metal the size of your dining room table? As with machining, it’s important to know as much as you can about any given metal before you attempt to make something with it. For now, here are some of the more common ones you’re likely to encounter on your path to metal mastery.

As with many businesses, one of the most challenging aspects to launching a fabricating shop is finding enough work to stay afloat. Making your customers happy will keep them coming back, but it’s important to maintain a disparate customer base to get you through the lean times and grow the company when times are good.

Machining was the basis by which the first industrial revolution began, and is just as important a factor to the fourth industrial revolution currently underway. Without machined parts, there'd be no cars or airplanes for a quick trip to visit Aunt Mary. There'd be no cappuccino machines, no Large Hadron Collider, no late-night talk shows, no replacements for your tired knee and hip joints.