FabDigit
Sheet Metal Fabrication

Cut, bent, welded —
just as drawn.

Production-grade sheet metal from prototype enclosures to ten-thousand-piece runs. Laser-cut, brake-bent, welded, and finished in one shop — your part ships door-ready, hardware installed.

Talk to engineering
Sheet metal fabrication — laser-cut and formed components on a workshop bench

Veteran program leads

Programs run by engineers who have shipped real parts at production scale.

Quoted in hours

Every quote comes with engineer review and DFM notes — not just a price.

FAI on every order

Every order ships with a full first-article report checked against your CAD.

Direct engineer access

Email, call, or video — talk straight to the person running your job.

Sheet metal processes

Cut, form, join, install — under one roof.

From a single-bend bracket on the laser to a 50-piece welded enclosure with PEM hardware and powder coat — we run the full chain in-house and through coordinated finishing partners.

Fiber laser cutting

Fiber laser cutting

Up to 25 mm carbon steel, 20 mm stainless, 12 mm aluminium.

± 0.1 mm
Turret punching

Turret punching

Hole patterns, louvers, dimples and form-ups in one pass.

± 0.05 mm
Press brake forming

Press brake forming

Air, bottom, and coining bends down to 1× thickness inside radius.

± 0.1 mm · ± 0.5°
TIG welding

TIG welding

Precision welds on stainless and aluminium — cosmetic-grade beads.

AWS D1.2 / D1.6
MIG welding

MIG welding

Production-rate carbon-steel structural welds and weldments.

AWS D1.1
Hardware insertion

Hardware insertion

PEM nuts, standoffs, studs, and threaded inserts pressed in-line.

PEM® / PennEng
Capabilities

The full envelope.

Max sheet size

3,000 × 1,500 mmLarger panels routed in two pieces and seam-welded; tell us the final outline and we will split the nest.

Gauge range

0.5 mm → 12 mmCarbon steel + stainless. Aluminium up to 12 mm; copper / brass up to 6 mm.

Bend tolerance

± 0.1 mm / ± 0.5°Per-feature on profiled-air bending. Coining drops the angular tolerance to ± 0.25°.

Cut-edge tolerance

± 0.05 mmFiber laser cut; tighter on punching for round holes; ± 0.15 mm on plasma > 12 mm.

Lead time

As fast as 3 business daysStandard 5–7 working days including finishing. Same-week turn on simple prototypes.

Inspection

First-piece on every orderFull FAI reports available on request. Weld inspections, dye-penetrant testing on request.

Materials

15+ stocked gradesMild steel, stainless, aluminium, copper, brass, galvanised, pre-finished, specialty alloys.

Gauge selection

Eight gauges. Which one is yours?

"Twenty gauge" sounds like a precise spec until you realise it does not match between US, UK, and metric standards. Below: the eight thicknesses we stock most often, drawn to scale against a 1/4″ plate.

Bend DFM

Four rules that decide if your part can be bent.

Where your features sit relative to the bend line is the difference between a part that comes off the brake clean and one we have to re-quote. Mark these tolerances on the drawing — or let our DFM review catch them before we even start.

Minimum flange height

4 × T + R

Shorter flanges fold inconsistently — the press brake cannot register a stable bend line.

Hole-to-bend distance

2 × T + R

Closer to the bend, the hole distorts into an oval as the metal stretches.

Hole-to-edge distance

≥ 2 × T

Closer to the edge, the laser cut blows out or the punch tears a corner.

Standard inside radius

1 × T (mild steel)

Tighter radii crack the outside fibre. We can coin to 0.5 × T on aluminium with prior approval.

T = material thickness · R = inside bend radius. Hard rules above are conservative; ask us about coining, mini-bend tooling, and tab-cut- relief tricks when your geometry forces tighter dimensions.

Materials

A curated showcase. Our catalogue runs 200+ deep.

The cards below are our most-requested grades — kept on the shelf for fast turnaround. Specialty alloys (Hastelloy, Inconel, titanium, tooling steels) on request. Material certifications (MTRs) included with every order.

CRS (Cold-rolled steel)
Mild steel
HRS (Hot-rolled steel)
Mild steel
Galvanised steel (G90)
Coated steel
Galvanneal
Pre-painted coated steel
Stainless 304
Austenitic stainless
Stainless 316
Marine-grade stainless
Stainless 430
Ferritic stainless
Aluminium 5052
Marine / chassis-grade alum.
Aluminium 6061
Structural aluminium
Aluminium 3003
Forming-grade alum.
Copper C110
Pure copper
Brass C260
Cartridge brass
Bronze C932
Bearing bronze
Hastelloy C-276
Corrosion-resistant alloy
Inconel 625
High-temp super-alloy

Need a grade not shown above? Our catalogue is 200+ deep — name it, spec it, or send a supplier datasheet and we will source it.

Surface finishes

Finished to spec.

A showcase of our most-requested finishes — eight of 30+ supported across paint, plating, anodising, and texturing. All coordinated through our finishing partners so your parts ship complete in one box.

Powder coating

Powder coating

Thick, hard coating in any RAL colour.

Wet paint

Wet paint

PMS / Pantone matched — single or multi-layer.

Anodised Type II

Anodised Type II

14 stock colours. Scratch-resistant on aluminium.

Brushed (No. 4)

Brushed (No. 4)

Linear grain — premium stainless or aluminium finish.

Bead blasted

Bead blasted

Uniform matte texture, hides tool marks.

Electropolish

Electropolish

Bright, passive finish on stainless.

Zinc plating

Zinc plating

Clear / yellow chromate corrosion barrier.

Silk-screen print

Silk-screen print

Logos, label fields, instruction art baked on.

Need a specific RAL / Pantone colour or a supplier-specified finish chemistry not pictured? Name it, spec it, or send a finish standard — our partner network covers the long tail of cosmetic and functional finishes.

How it works

CAD to door, in four steps.

The same engineer reviews your quote, watches over cut + bend + weld, and signs off on the inspection report — so nothing falls between shop floor stations.

  1. Upload your CAD

    STEP, SLDPRT, DXF or flat-pattern PDF. Drop it on the page or email us.

  2. Quote in hours

    An engineer reviews for bend access, weld fit-up, and DFM, then prices the job.

  3. We make it

    First piece is measured and gauge-checked before the rest of the batch runs.

  4. Door delivery

    We ship complete — hardware installed, finish cured, inspection report attached.

What is always included

  • DFM review with every quote
  • First-piece inspection on every order
  • Material certifications on request
  • NDA before file upload — on request
  • Production from 1 to 10,000+ parts
  • PEM hardware installed in-line
  • Finishing coordinated through partners
  • Direct engineer access — email, call, or video
Lead time

CAD to door, day by day.

A typical 50-piece prototype run on a brake-bent, welded, powder- coated enclosure. Real schedules vary by finish chemistry, weld length, and partner-shop calendar — but this is the shape of a standard programme.

Need parts faster? Bare cut-and-bend prototypes (no welding, no finish) can turn in 3 days. Multi-layer finishes (e-coat + paint, zinc + powder) add 2–3 working days to the finishing phase.

Frequently asked

Answers, on the record.

Engineers wrote these. If yours is not here, emailengineering@fabdigit.com — typical reply within 4 business hours.

STEP (.step / .stp), SOLIDWORKS (.sldprt), DXF flat patterns, IGES, and 3D PDF for marketing-only review.

For sheet metal we prefer either the 3D solid model (so we can pull our own flat pattern, bend lines, and K-factor against our brake) or a fully-dimensioned DXF + 3D PDF pair.

Same business day for prototypes. Complex multi-bend weldments with finishing typically come back inside a day. Engineer review is included on every quote — you get DFM notes, not just a price.

Five business days is our standard for stocked materials including finishing. Bare cut-and-bend prototype turnaround can be three days. Powder-coat or zinc-plate adds 1–2 days because the finisher batches our jobs alongside others.

Yes — both TIG and MIG, in-house or through partners depending on volume. TIG for cosmetic stainless or aluminium beads, MIG for production-rate carbon-steel structures. Weld callouts use AWS D1.1 / D1.2 / D1.6 nomenclature on the drawing and we follow the symbol exactly.

Yes — PEM® and PennEngineering threaded inserts (nuts, studs, standoffs, captive screws) are pressed in-line on a fluid-press station, included in the per-part price. Just call them out on the drawing or send the SKU list and we will source them.

Yes — laser cut, brake bent, welded, hardware installed, finished, and packed. Many customers ship us only the CAD and a packaging spec; we deliver completed enclosures palletised and ready to receive PCBs or sub-assemblies.

3,000 × 1,500 mm is the largest panel we can lay out on a single nest. Panels larger than that we split, cut individually, and seam-weld back together — tell us the final outline and we coordinate the split for you.

No. We quote single prototypes the same way we quote 10,000-piece production runs — the price-per-piece just changes.

Yes. Mill test reports (MTRs) and certificates of conformance from the raw stock supplier ship with the order when requested at quote time. Sheet metal certifications generally cover yield strength, chemistry, and surface coating thickness.

Every quote includes a free DFM review. The engineer flags bend-access, weld fit-up, hole-to-bend, and tolerance-stack issues before quoting, and suggests changes that reduce cost or improve manufacturability.

Ready when you are

Upload a CAD file. Get a quote in hours.

No order minimums. No long sign-up flow. Just sheet metal, made right.

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Sheet Metal Fabrication | FabDigit