With the addition of coil feeding, laser cutting takes a strong shot at a bastion of hard-tooled blanking: cutting automotive body-panel blanks from advanced high-strength steels.

Harder grit, uniform grit size, and new backing and resin materials reduce finishing most welds in stainless steel to just three or four steps. Norton has experimented with all of the variables – including lighter tools — to produce faster results with fewer scrapped workpieces.

One operator, two machines, one workpiece – or a thousand. Like machining cells, the Flex-Cell allows one-part changeover or efficient production. But the press brake/folding machine combination is unique, as far as we know, in fabricating.

Some of the most popular metal materials also have an inherent problem.

Robots can weld three to five times faster than manual welders. Now small shops can get in on the action quickly, using pre-packaged and pre-wired robotic welding cells. To judge if one is right for you, say the experts, think it through by following a few obvious, and not-so-obvious, evaluation guidelines.