Shaping Machine, Slotting Machine, Milling Machine

Forms of Metal Forming Machinery – Shaping Machine, Slotting Machine, Milling Machine, Lathe Machine

Different kinds of metal working machineries are used to form the metals into required shapes and sizes. These include the metal shaping machines, metal cutting machines, the slotting machines, milling machines and lathe machines.

The metal shapers and cutters are the basic forms of machineries used in industries for metal fabrication tasks. Both of them are employed to give the metals desired forms or shapes. The metal piece is brought to a specified geometry by removing excess material from it using various kinds of tooling with these machines. The final product obtained from these metal shaping and cutting machines are the finished parts that meet size and shape specifications of the user.

Slotting Machine

One of the widely employed forms of metal cutting and shaping machinery is slotting machine. A slotting machine is used to slot and shape the metals. It can make slots on hard-to-cut metal parts like heads of blank machine screws, wood screws, bolts, automobile components etc. The operation employed in these slotting machines is carried out using a mounted cutting tool in conjunction with a movable table that moves metal back and forth to create the different shapes. The tasks like the creation of grooves, T-slots, dovetails, and curved surfaces on the metals can be easily and efficiently be carried out on slotting machines.

Shaping Machine

On the other hand the shaping machine is good when machining flat metal surfaces is the purpose. Especially when a large amount of metal has to be removed for shaping machines are really very efficient. The milling machine is just one of the forms of metal shaping machinery that is used when complex metal shaping tasks with much accuracy are needed to be carried out. The milling machine is comparatively much expensive and better for the tasks where shaping can be achieved by removing smaller amounts of metal.

CNC Lathe Machine

Producing cylindrical or axis identical parts is yet one of the most common requirement in industries like power plants, steel rolling mills, tool rooms, ship building, repairing shops, paper mills, workshops, textile, oil, mining industries etc. To meet this requirement often CNC lathe machines are used. These lathe machines turn the metal work piece producing a cylindrical or axis-symmetrical surface by employing cutting, or deformation tools. The headstock, the carriage, and the tailstock are the three main components of these metal forming machineries that are used to produce an object which has rotational symmetry about an axis of rotation. The headstock secures the work piece, tailstock holds the cutting tool to be used to cut the metal and the carriage moves the cutting tool around the rotating work piece, gradually shaving the material from the work piece to give it the desired shape. In the recent times CNC lathe machines have been developed which are advanced and automated forms of the traditional lathe machineries. These are computer controlled machines which are designed to automate most of the metal forming tasks which were earlier performed by the user himself for metal fabrication.

Sheet Bending – Press Brake, Power Press

Sheet Bending Process and Machines

Sheet bending is a process of metal forming through which metals are bent into desired forms. In a sheet bending process the metals are casted into the required form by exerting a strong force on them. The force applied on the metal actually causes it to deform along one axis only but by applying the force repeatedly with a sequence of different operations the metals can be deformed along multiple axes thus forming the shape desired out of the metal piece.

Sheet Bending Process

In the process, the metal experiences both tension as well as compression. The tension will cause the outer part of the work piece to stretch further in the length where as the inside portion will experience the compression and will be shortened due to the force exerted. Apart from these two factors, the metal will also be subjected to residual stresses after the bending and these forces will try to slightly get back the metal to its original shape. For this reason the metal is often subjected to a little much bending than required so that the accurate sheet bending can be acquired in spite of the residual stresses acting on it.  

Machines for Sheet Bending Process

To achieve bending, the metals need to be stressed beyond their yield strength and below the tensile strength and this is not at all an easy task as metals are very hard substances. Therefore to achieve sheet bending, most often the tools like press brakes, shearing, power press and bending roller are used especially for the industrial applications where the quantity requirement is large.

Press Brake                      

Press brake is one of the basic and popular forms of sheet bending machinery. Available in manual and automated versions, this machine is used to bend metals of different kinds in wide variety of industrial applications. In press brake the metal deformation is achieved by placing it between tools called punch and dies. Punch is the upper tool that exerts force on the metal piece where as the die is the bottom tool casted in a specific shape into which the metal will be casted when force is exerted on it. While metal is subjected to force of the punch, it is held back in position with a back gauge so that accurate bending with accurate angles can be achieved without any disturbance in positioning of the work piece. With various techniques and types of punch and die tooling, the customized bending can be achieved. For severe, faster or bulk tasks, when required to be performed on the harder metals, use of stronger tooling will efficiently serve the purpose.

Power Press

It is one of the most important variants of sheet bending. It is usually available in two types of constructions – C type frame and pillar type frame. In c type the built frame of the machine is similar to that of alphabetical ā€˜Cā€™ shape and therefore it is called as C type power press where as in pillar type the frame of the machine is pillar type. Both the types give an efficient performance in cutting, pressing, bending and forming the sheet metals into different shapes and sizes.

The Bottom Line

Apart from these, there are even the shearing machines which can be employed for cutting large sheets, bars and plates of metallic and non-metallic materials into different shapes and therefore are utilized in industries like automobile, printing, food processing, engineering, electronic, plastic, wood working, electrical, construction for various metal shearing tasks.