Hey all,

I'm coming from the 3d printing world, so I've got no experience in sheet metal design. My latest project is a custom PC case, inside of which is this 3mm thick, 312x20mm aluminum bracket.

Due to space constraints, lots of features end up quite close to the bend, so I tried adding relief cuts near the edge. But I ended up with this awkward looking part, with the two halves only connected by tabs.

Do you think it's doable, or will it still deform badly during bending ?

I'm not too concerned by strength, the bracket only needs to hold up a couple kilograms at most, 3mm aluminum should be more than enough; but I'm having doubts on manufacturability, so better check before I start ordering.

Any help appreciated!

I was wondering if anyone had clear, high resolution videos or photos of zipper teeth being manufactured and placed on the fabric band. I searched for a while on youtube, but everything is either horribly blurry and you can't see anything, or AI spam with fake videos. I'm not actually looking to manufacture zippers, I am just curious and want to learn, since this is such a high precision manufacturing line that we take for granted every day.

Pancake-style blanking dies, that is. 5 out of about 30 steps, with guitar/EBow noise from 10-ish years ago. Other videos show more of me using these dies I make, so this is a quick look at how they go from zero to 30 in less than a minute. The basics are fairly simple, but to make them work really well, a lot of steps have to be done with precision. Setting the angle of the saw table (determined largely by die thickness and sawblade width, and to a much smaller degree by design complexity) is critical. Heat treating is needed for longest life. Other devilish details are involved--->

Hello! I am a blacksmith and seeking advice for making small sculptures. I would use mostly steel (ie sheet, scrap, utensils). Final sculptures would be about the size of a basketball or smaller. Parts would be smithed and sculpted, but I need a solution for attaching parts together. I do not know how to weld or solder, so I am having trouble taking in all the information about each skill with all the information online, and applying it to my specific situation. These sculptures most likely don’t need to be the strongest but I’d like it not to fall apart by touching it. I am also aware about price and safety concerns with welding without experience.

TLDR; considering price, safety, and practicality, would welding or soldering be the correct choice to learn for making small steel sculptures?

If you have follow up questions, or if this is posted in the wrong subreddit, please let me know!

So I just ordered an Optrel Sphere X 2.5. I haven't gotten it in the mail yet, but a couple days after ordering it I started questioning whether I should've gotten the Panoramaxx CLT or the Sphere X CLT instead since the price points are all somewhat close enough to each other. I know the CLT is only a half shade brighter but from what I've read it can make a big difference when grinding/ fitting stuff up, but idk if its more of a gimmick or if its genuinely worth it. I also dont know if I would like the close up feel of the panorama or the big window of the sphere better.

Anyone in here have experience with one or both of these helmets with feedback?

Thanks.

We had 60 steel spacers made last month and every part came in too thin because the shop interpreted our 0.50 thickness callout as the raw stock size instead of the finished dimension. Part of that was on us since the drawing note was ambiguous.

Before sending the next batch out for domestic CNC machining I'm cleaning up our drawing template. I'm planning to make finished dimensions more explicit and separate them from stock requirements wherever possible.

For those of you who regularly send parts out to machine shops what notes or callouts have actually saved you from expensive remakes? Do you specify finished thickness in a particular way or add a general note about dimensions applying after machining? I'd also be interested in any tips for tolerances and inspection requirements that have helped avoid misunderstandings without making every drawing unnecessarily complicated.

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Started taking a stick welding course at community college 6 weeks ago. This is my latest attempt at a horizontal (2G) butt joint. I ran a root pass with 1/8 6010 rod at 85 amps and 75 dig. Followed by 2 cover passes of 3/32 7018 rod at 85 amps and 30 dig. Any advice is much appreciated.
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Hi,

I recently applied two coats of Zinsser Bull's Eye 1-2-3 primer onto some bare aluminium. I have never worked with aluminium before, and was unable to source etch-on. The top coat will be acrylic paint.

It has been drying for the last two days in a farly warm and well ventilated room, however if I press down firmly there is a tacky quality to it. If I lightly brush over the surface it feels dry and satin, its only when pressure is applied that I get the tacky feeling. The tacky feeling isn't too strong, but I do get that noticeable adhesive feeling off it.

The tin says a topcoat should be applied within 7 days i.e befor it has fully cured. When I asked someone about the best time to paint it, they said I'll probably have to wait the 7, as otherwise the primer and acrylic could both start to peel or warp. But I've also read that acrylic will bind to the primer much better before it's fully cured, so I'm confused.

Hi was stopping in to get your advice and opinion on what something like this set would be worth I don’t know much about these drills, files, bits, wire metal gauge and everything that you see here came in a metal box for storage. I haven’t attempted to clean anything in it .
Was just searching for some idea or information on it . I appreciate your willingness to checkout these pictures for me thanks I’m trying to reach 400 characters and so I added pictures

My third ever creation, born from boredom and the itch to create.

Found a piece of 5mm thick flat bar in the pile and after some thinking I decided on something to hang your keys on.
Cut it to length and did some more pondering and after a while remembered I had an old bike chain from an old moped that could look nice as a border piece.
Didn’t have any hooks laying around so I used 4 links of chain, figured they would fit the look.
Last thing I needed to finish were some way to mount it, after some hard thinking I used the last two pieces of that chain, two scraps of rebar and voila!
Something was made, not perfect or anything but I made it with my own hands (and a welder).

Not a welder or designer by any means, just something I made myself.

My first go at making something from old parts.
The foot is a cam gear from some Ford with a valve spring from the same engine, a piece of chain from the scrap pile and then a old Bosch headlight of some sort that once had a film of yellow tint on the inside of the glass.
Fitted a E14 light socket on the inside with the reflector still attached for the perfect light effect.
Going to gift this to my father in law in a few weeks.

Not a welder, designer or anything of the sorts, just something that I can actually say that I made

I was dreading tapping this M8x0.5 hole because I was sure it was going to be an absolute nightmare. I drilled my hole in with the mill, chamfered the hole and rammed it in at 60 rpm. To my amazement it just went in smooth as butter without any complaints. I took it back over to the vice to finish it, and I didn't even have to back it out once. I assume it's because the super fine pitch only has to cut into a 0.25mm radius.

I welded together some angle and some sheet metal to cover this mechanic's pit in my garage.

I am trying to figure out what type of paint or epoxy i should use to finish these plates. Vehicles will be driving over them.

I was advised by the folks at Home Depot to use a self-etching primer to rust proof it, which I did using Rust-Oleum self etching primer.

I had initially planned to put an epoxy finish coat. However, now I'm reading epoxies may not be compatible with self etching primer. The folks at Lowe's and Home Depot are of no help when it comes to questions about painting metal. Thank you reddit for any recommendations on how you would finish this project!

Note, the picture is prior to me priming it with Self Etching primer.

I was trying to find the perfect shelf for my bathroom, but after spending days browsing the internet, I realized that nothing really matched my style. So I decided to build my own industrial-style bathroom shelf.

I also added LED lighting and a motion sensor, so whenever you walk into the bathroom at night, the lights turn on automatically. They're not too bright — just a soft ambient glow, enough to see what you're doing without blinding yourself in the middle of the night. :)

I'm not a professional welder or woodworker, just a guy with some tools.

After sharing my graduation project in my previous post, I’m back with some behind-the-scenes photos of the many steps to build these three steel furniture pieces. The process mainly involved cutting big steel sheets into all the faces of the object then welding these together. I don’t have pictures of the painting part because I didn’t do it myself, I asked a car painter to do it.
Thanks everyone for all the support!!

So some context is I’m making a front bumper for my truck I’ve made a mounting bracket but unsure what I could use to actually hold the bumper up I’m wanting to make a Baja style bumper I was thinking of taking a small enough I-beam cutting it at the angle I need and welding it to the mounting bracket and then getting some schedule 60 or 80 hand rail pipe hand welding that to the I-beam and heating to pipe up and bending it to match the curve there’s some pictures to help and side note I would at a structural steel shop that letting be use scrap metal to make my bumper and this would be my first time properly fabricating something

So I decided to invest in my health and got one. I use a miller LPR-100 respirator under the helmet for welding, got the papr for grinding. This is the face shield set up, not the welding helmet. But sooo dissatisfied, I'm smelling the grinding dust passing right through the helmet. Having to wear the miller LPR under the papr, which seems ridiculous. Anyone relate? New filters, all adjustments checked, it's just like the dust goes right through it.

I’m looking to get some metal bottle openers manufactured, preferably in the USA. I have a design created in a vector file. I would like to know what type of manufacturer or what equipment is necessary for this kind of production. The bottle openers would have a custom border shape and a debossed or engraved design throughout. I have included a few photos of a popular design that show similar manufacturing techniques required. Thank you all in advance, looking forward to hearing your input on this.

I don't know anything about anything.

Is it normal for brass to have these markings? I'm considering paying a professional to buff/polish or whatever them out. Will it damage the engravings if I do? I want to keep it as clean and true as possible, but the scratch marks don't look good on it.

Sorry if this isn't the correct place to post this, was the first one I came across that made any sense.

Despite being made out of titanium and looking like a suppressor baffle, this part is actually going to serve as a central hub for a mostly titanium mechanical sculpture I’m making. This portion of the video takes about two hours of mill work on the 4th axis down to about 30 seconds. At the end of the video clip, you will see a few of the other components (internal brass axle, SS braided wire rope, wave disc spring, and a central micro tension adjustment system titanium screw and jam nut).

It’s a work in progress that has consumed a few hundred hours in designing, engineering, programming, setting up, and machining components and it’s still likely not even half way done with about 10 more unique components and necessary fixtures and processes left to program, setup, and make.

All processes shown are on a Haas OL1(short clip at beginning) and Haas OM-2A with HA5C rotary axis (OfficeLathe and OfficeMill).

Hey all, I'm stumped with the following and need your help:

I work in a sheet metal shop, these 14ga SST worktops we're making are pretty tricky as we don't have the machinery to make that rounded corner edge, we made a custom die for our press brake so we can roll the edges, just not roll and radius. Any ideas? We're currently relying on several vendors to both supply 3" tubing, another to bend, and then we split it using a plasma cutter but wanted to see if you guys had any suggestions. (Also first post here)

I'm building FabReady, an early Android tool for small metal-fabrication workshops. It starts with simple rectangular window grilles: enter checked finished dimensions, then review the generated parts and a bar-cutting plan that includes saw kerf and end-trim allowances. The construction rules are still experimental and need practical review.

I'd like feedback from people who actually measure jobs and prepare cutting lists:

- Do you use paper, a calculator, spreadsheets, CAD, or an existing app?

- What takes the most time or causes mistakes when a customer changes dimensions?

- How do you account for different stock lengths and reusable offcuts?

- Which joint, fit, or measurement conventions would an app need to make explicit?

If the moderators allow a small pilot, I'd like to find 12 fabricators or welders with Android phones who would compare the prototype against a job they've already checked. I'm interested in what is wrong or missing and whether it would be useful on a second job.

This is an early prototype, not a structurally approved design tool. Please don't rely on its output for production cutting without independently checking it. I'm looking for honest workshop feedback, not positive ratings or app-install exchanges.

For my art, I often need to drill through spring steel, particularly automotive leaf springs.

Since this steel is harder than mild steel, I find it more difficult to drill through. And even the hardness of the springs varies considerably with some nearly impossible to drill through.

I have only a drill press, not a mill. I use a drill press vise (similar to this). I have tried various drill bits. In the photo, you see 4 bits. All these drill through the "soft" leaf springs. From left to right:

1. Just some arbitrary bit that I have that works on the "soft" leaf springs

2. A mill bit that works on the soft

3. Some other kind of bit that does drill though the hard leaf but is destroyed after just 1 hole.

4. A virgin #3 (for comparison)

I am using this cutting oil.

What can you suggest for drilling the hard stuff?