Subject = engineering Description = Harley Engineering specialise in the design, manufacture and installation of welded and fabricated sheet metal products. Category = engineering
is produced by reducing the thickness of a long work piece by compressive forces applied through a set of rolls. This process is known as rolling and began around 1500 AD. Today sheet
metal
is available
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et
as flat pieces or as strip in coils. It is characterized by its thickness or gauge of the
metal
. The gauge of sheet
metal
ranges from 30 gage to about 8 gage. The higher the gage, the thinner the
metal
is. There are many different
metal
s that can be made
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et
into sheet
metal
. Aluminum, brass, copper, cold rolled
steel
, mild
steel
, nickel and titanium are just a few examples of
metal
that can be made into sheet
metal
. As sheet
metal
has many different applications like car bodies, airplane wings,
medical
tables, roofs for building and about a thousand other
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rack
et
things. A main feature of sheet
metal
is its ability to be formed and shaped by a variety of processes. Each process does something different to the
metal
giving it a different shape or size. Processes include: Stretching is a process where sheet
metal
is clamped around its edges and
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et
stretched over a die or form block. This process is mainly used for the manufacture of aircraft wings, automotive door and window panels. Drawing forms sheet
metal
into cylindrical or box shaped parts by using a punch which presses the blank into a die cavity. Bending and flanging imparts stiffness
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et
to a sheet
metal
part or to form various shapes, such as 3 piece aluminum cans. During punching or shearing, the sheet
metal
is cut by using a punch and die. Spinning is used to make axis-symmetric parts by applying a work piece to a rotating mandrel with the help
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rack
et
of rollers or rigid tools. Spinning is used to make rocket motor casings and missile nose cones for example. Press forming is a form of bending used for long and thin sheet
