Metal supplier shear and brake work

I am working on a project that will include storage cabinets, off the shelf cabs are not quite what I am looking for. A metal supplier I deal with offers brake and shearing services, would they be competitive or higher/lower than a fab shop to do the basics?

I have an idea of what I would like to have done. Shear a couple sheets in half, bend up troughs with flanges on the face and bend a sheet with the same flange detail on the two long edges. Six bends on the trough sections, four bends on the sheet all gauged the same. The material would be .125 5052

Steve

I have found the steel service center I used is mostly for a Fab shop type
bending.
Ask them to put their tolerance in their quote.

You will need more than an idea. Without real drawings you are wasting your time and theirs. Can they do more than square or rectangular parts? Holes?

Qualify not quite what you're looking for. If it's at all close, you'll save a bundle compromising


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Best to price it both ways...supplied bent straight from the supplier versus drop shipped somewhere to be bent.
Sometimes when you ask your metal supplier person to quote having xxx done to xxx, they farm out the added work to the same place you could farm it to, mark it up %30 and send you the quote.

Steve in SoCal said:

....... A metal supplier I deal with offers brake and shearing services, would they be competitive or higher/lower than a fab shop to do the basics?

Steve

Click to expand...

There's no general rule of thumb to answer this question--it's totally dependent on the shops quoting.

Since your project is apparently a one-time, one-off deal....I'd be much more concerned as to the actual tolerances
and other specifics that you need established, waaaaay before I'd be looking for 'cheap'.
.......becuz.....if supplier blows your print requirements.....they still may demand payment--since it's "close enough, etc." (I've been hosed by that game--one time--by a material distributor's in house 'hack to fab' shop. Conversely
another distributor a mile away from the first---always gives me parts to print.)

If nothing else, you'll spend additional time/money trying to find a source that will make to print.

Suggest you ask each vendor for their recco's on realistic tolerances and the way they'd like to see the fab dim's., locations/datums called out for ease of use by their troops. I've used medium to large to ASME code shops for outsourcing my shear/brake/bend/roll stuff for decades, without hassles or mis-understandings:

-always have face to face meeting with person in charge of quoting, get advice/comments, how to note on drawing
where there's wiggle room to HELP ME MAKE THE FINAL FITUP, remove cost/confusion details.
(the code shop-undercharges me to what I think a fair price would be...and consistently provides me with parts
that always fit up)

-for areas that I feel require further, distinct definition beyond that of a toleranced dimension-usually big radii---I'll furnish appropriate go/no-go metal templates to be used as my drawing notes.

Getting independent opinions from other end users of a fab shop is very helpful.