Aluminum Fabrication Overview

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Aluminum Fabrication Overview

What is an Aluminum Fabrication and How Does It Work?

Aluminum is a common and widely-used metal in the manufacturing industry. It is used in many different ways to create various types of products such as aircrafts, automobiles, and electronics.

The most popular uses for aluminum is by way of metal cnc machining & sheet metal fabrication. The process involves melting down an aluminum ingot (a block) and then hammering it into a desired shape. This can be done by hand or with an automated system that uses robotic arms to shape the metal into whatever form it needs to be.

What is an Aluminum Fabrication and How Does It Work?

There are many uses for aluminum fabrication such as aerospace, electrical, structural and automotive industries. The process of an aluminum fabrication includes the use of various types of machining tools to shape raw materials into a finished product.

Metal Fabricators in the manufacturing sector use a number of fabrication techniques including welding, stamping, forging, and machining to produce high-quality metal products.

A metal fabricator is a manufacturing professional who specializes in the fabrication of metal products; especially steel. The skillset is considered to be shallow and not as diverse as other metal fabrication specialties such as an engineer or machinist.

There are many different types of Metal Fabricators that work with various materials such as aluminum, copper, stainless steel and more depending on their employers needs. They work in a wide range of fields such as automotive, aerospace and machinery production.

Metal Fabricators typically do not need a college degree nor apprenticeship training because they typically learn through experience working within the field.

Can aluminum be fabricated? The answer to this question is that, yes, aluminium can be fabricated. It is a lightweight metal with a specific thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity. It has excellent corrosion resistance and it can also be recycled in a very efficient manner. The most commonly used aluminum alloy is aluminium 6061.

Aluminium is an ideal material for manufacturing various products ranging from architectural structures to aircraft components. A heavily employed aluminium alloy in the automotive industry is Al-Li alloy which has specific properties like high strength and low weight compared to its rivals like steel or titanium.

Aluminum fabricators are companies that have the capabilities of extruding, rolling, drawing, forging, cutting, and machining aluminum.

The term “aluminum fabricator” refers to a company or business that operates in the trade of metal fabrication. Metal fabrication is the process of making parts to be used in various industries for construction purposes. Aluminum processing generally includes extrusion to create products such as auto parts and electrical wire; rolling in order to make sheet metal into various shapes; drawing to create wire or tubes; forging in order to make an object with a particular shape or geometry; cutting in order to cut sheet metal into specific shapes; and machining by using high-speed computer numerical controlled machines (CNCs) to create components from scrap metals.

How Aluminum Fabrication Works for Today's Metals Industry

How Aluminum Fabrication Works for Today's Metals Industry

Aluminum has become a popular metal because it’s lightweight and has a high strength to weight ratio. But there is a lack of aluminum extrusion and cnc machining machines, which are needed to produce aluminum from raw materials.

In order to meet the demands of the market, manufacturers have been seeking advanced solutions that use less energy and cost-efficient production. One such solution is using sheet piling with aluminum extrusion technology that works with melting the scrap into molten metal.

Companies can now use this process for their non-standard aluminium product needs. With sheet piling, you have a great variety of shapes and sizes available so you can come up with new designs on demand- for example, if a car company wanted a new car design they could produce it quickly by ordering sheet piling from their supplier.

Metal fabrication is the process of manufacturing metal products by using a combination of techniques such as welding, cutting, and punching.

How do you fabricate aluminum?


In the metal fabrication industry, there are many types of metal fabrication. Some of these include:

– Metal Cutting

– Metal Forming

– Metal Punching

– Metal Shearing

– Metal Welding

– Metal stamping

– Metal milling

– Metal casting

  • • Cold forming: This process is done by mostly manual tools such as hammers and hydraulic presses.
  • • Hot forming: In this process, steel or copper is heated up to a certain temperature before being worked into the desired shape.
  • • CNC milling: In this process, a computer-controlled machine cuts materials to specified dimensions.
  • • Forging: This occurs when a piece of metal is hammered into shape with great force.
  • • Punching: This process involves punching holes into sheet metal materials without touching it with another tool to form patterns.
  •  Cutting – this process uses a rotating saw blade to cut through the material.

  •  Welding- Welding metal with an arc or using inert gas shielding

  •  Shearing- Cutting metal using shears or grinding wheels

  •  Casting- Melting metals to shape the object

Aluminum welding is a process that is used to join metal sheets together by melting the surfaces together. Aluminum welding is different from steel welding because aluminum has a lower melting point than steel does.

The first step in the aluminum welding process starts with grinding off the surface on both sides of the two pieces of metal to be joined. The next step is to apply an aluminum oxide slurry to each side of each piece, followed by rolling the pieces around on a rotating drum covered with sandpaper. Finally, applying pressure with clamps can help speed up the process.

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The major principles of welding aluminum are heat input, heat distribution, and good joint formation. In order to get good welds, the aluminum must be heated sufficiently to produce a molten pool. This can happen by either heating from both sides or from one side only, which is referred to as single-sided deposition. It takes approximately 10 minutes for an 11-gauge material to melt at 600 degrees Fahrenheit (316 degrees Celsius).

After the molten pool has been created it must be thoroughly mixed with the existing metal so that no lumps are formed in the weld puddle during cooling down. 

Why Aluminum More Preferred than Other Metals?

Aluminum is one of the most popular metals used in the engineering industry. It is also found in many products, including cars, airplanes, and buildings. Aluminum is widely preferred over other metals because it can be easily recycled and it has a higher strength-to-weight ratio.

Aluminum does have an advantage over some other metals because of its high strength-to-weight ratio. This means that aluminum products are lighter despite being made of more metal than some other metals. This allows for cheaper production costs compared to the more expensive materials used in these types of products.

Aluminum metal fabrication is a manufacturing process that creates thin sheets of aluminum metal. It is widely used for castings, forgings, anodized sheets, and extrusions. Aluminum fabrication has many benefits including being lightweight, corrosion resistant, and easy to use.

Advantages of aluminum metal fabrication:


  • – Durable – Aluminum can last very long without rusting or corroding even if it is subjected to high levels of heat or water exposure
  • – Lightweight – the general properties of the material are so good that it weighs less than 40% of its weight compared to steel which weighs around 97%
  • – Aluminum is a relatively inexpensive costly metal, meaning that the initial cost is low and there are benefits to using aluminum over other metals.
  • – Aluminum is recyclable and it can be costly to make new products from other metals. Aluminum also has a higher strength-to as well as conductivity that makes it an attractive material for use in manufacturing.
  • – Aluminum is non-conductive, which means it can be welded with other metals without harmful effects on either metal’s integrity or conductivity.
  • – Aluminum is easy to shape any complex design machined parts for verity of industrial.

How Will Aluminum Change the Future of Metal Manufacturing Industries

Aluminum is one of the most suitable metals to be used in the production of highly-structured products. It is lightweight, durable, and resistant to corrosion.

The usage of aluminum will bring many changes to the manufacturing industry. The super alloying process of metals has been around for decades but now, with AI assistance, it can be done at scale for different industries.

With AI assistance, aluminum manufacturers can improve their current methods or even design new ones by using methods that are not yet available.

Author: Mose Li

Author: Mose Li

Director of Project Engineering at 3Q Machining

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