Profiled steel plate

I am beginning to think about my next project, for that I will need steel plate, 10mm to 25mm thickness cut to various shapes. The cutting method is unimportant, I think. Gas, plasma, water jet, I don't think it matters. What I am looking for is a business that can do this at reasonable cost. I have tried a couple of the larger businesses doing this sort of work, they are (understandably) not interested in small one-offs.

John

John, you do not give your approximate location in your profile. Depending where you are lots of companies can do this. I am in the West Midlands and use a laser cutter in Tamworth at very reasonable cost and a flame cut profile cutter in Darlaston (Walsalll) also at reasonable cost. Laser cutter requires profile sent in DXF format to save cost of him programming.

You should be able to find a smaller company around that will do this but your right that most of the bigger companies wont be interested. Just remember to add a couple of mm per side for a machining allowance if it's plasma cut.

Sciss are model engineer friendly for waterjet cutting, I have used them a few times. For Laser cutting I usually use lasermaster. I both cases send them a DXF file for a price or if just rectangular then Lasermaster have an online calculator.

I use PP Profiles in Batley, West Yorkshire for work - all small orders / 1 offs. They also offer Lumsden grinding to nominal thickness (+/- 0.25mm) & heat treating (stress relief / annealing). They just require a .dxf file of the profile you require. I have found the cut profiles to be clean and accurate to better than 0.2mm, so you don't need much of a machining allowance. Usually a couple of weeks turnround - they post small items & have a delivery lorry for bigger parts.

**LINK**

HTH

Nigel B

Many thanks for the replies, think I will ask the places suggested for a quote. Very little need for machining allowances, there will be various holes and slots that can be cut accurately enough. Any machining allowances will be in the thickness of the metal, so after welding I can machine the thing square.

I have no connection to Microkerf in Leicester but they are a cut above the half dozen laser cutting companies I have used previously. (Unintentional, but not a bad pun!)

If you have a DXF file (or files) it creates a detailed quotation online in seconds, not only does it give a the price for the part but also calculates prices for the 5 off, 10 off, and however many cut out of a full sheet!. Its also only a few seconds work to compare the cost differences of making the part out of different grades of material.

I would say they are extremely model engineer friendly as although they are a big company they have really automated their system and it works. They do have a minimum charge (not sure how much) but the service is truly excellent. (Microkerf.com)

Ian P

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I've just had a look at the site, Ian ... and am very impressed !

https://www.microkerf.co.uk/index.php/en/online-services-en

Thanks for the post

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 16/09/2018 06:25:34