The automotive industry relies on metalworking equipment to build, modify, and test vehicles. Choosing the right tools and knowing how to use them safely and effectively are the key skills in this field. You’ll need different types of equipment to fabricate metal and make parts with unique shapes and designs. Here are ways the automotive sector uses metalworking tools and equipment in their operations:
Metal Cutting
Building or modifying vehicles requires cutting metal into smaller parts with different dimensions. Metal cutting equipment includes CNC (computer numerical control) machines, shears, and saw-cutting machines. You’ll need more sophisticated equipment like CNC machines, plasma cutters, or metal saw-cutting machines for higher-volume jobs.
Advanced metal-cutting machines offer a range of benefits. They are fast and produce clean, precise cuts. They’re versatile, allowing you to cut various materials like metal, glass, plastics, and rubber. Besides cutting, metalworking equipment trims and shapes rods, pipes, and wires.
Metal Bending
Metal bending is one of the forming techniques used to make angles and curves. It is suitable for creating complex auto-body components like frames, doors, and brackets. The automotive industry uses various metalworking machines to bend sheet metal. Some common machines include hydraulic press brakes, angle rolls, hot bending machines, and universal benders.
Metal bending equipment applies force to produce permanent shapes and designs in metals. Utilizing these machines offers several benefits over traditional fabrication equipment. They allow for higher precision, even when producing parts with complex shapes.
Metal Joining
The automotive industry uses various metalworking equipment to join two or more metal parts. The most common metal joining techniques include welding and riveting. Welding uses heat to melt and fuse metal parts. This technique relies on weld positioners, welders, and welding tables. Welding joins automotive structural components such as frames, chassis, exhaust systems, and body panels.
If you want to join dissimilar metals, you can use a cold-joining technique like riveting. This technique involves creating holes in metal parts and inserting riveters to secure joints. Riveting creates strong and permanent joints. It helps assemble structural parts like door hinges, chassis, and seat structures.
Metal Stamping
Metal stamping is another technique used in the automotive industry to transform sheet metal into desired shapes and designs. It uses specialized metalworking equipment such as hydraulic and mechanical presses, which work with automated systems such as feeders to enhance efficiency. They also use specialized metal stamping dies to press sheets and make consistently shaped and sized parts. Metal stamping makes body panels, brackets, seat latches, and mounting plates.
Types of metal stamping used in the automotive industry include blanking, piercing, bending, embossing, and coining. Automotive manufacturers can use steel, aluminum, copper, and other materials in the metal stamping process. Metal stamping is cost-effective, versatile, and easy to customize. It’s also highly efficient when producing parts in large quantities to meet demand.
Metal Grinding
Automotive manufacturers use metalworking equipment to grind and smooth metal surfaces. These include rotary, surface, cylindrical, and drill grinders. This process prepares metal parts to help them to fit together and work efficiently. It removes any corrosion, old paint, or dirt from the surface. A clean and smooth metal surface is also ideal for painting.
Metal grinding helps shape and smoothen engine parts, especially crankshafts and cylinder heads. It also produces brake parts, such as rotors and pads, to enhance performance. Repairing a vehicle’s bodywork after an accident may require removing imperfections on the metal surface. Grinding equipment removes the dents or scratches from the damaged metal, thus creating a seamless repair.
Metal Drilling
Metal drilling in the automotive industry involves creating holes in metal parts. This technique relies on various metalworking equipment such as radial drills, drill presses, and magnetic drills. These machines are pressed against a metal surface to rotate and create holes. Operating experts use various drill bits to remove material and make holes with specific dimensions. After drilling, auto manufacturers use these holes to join, fasten, or fit other vehicle components.
Auto enthusiasts and engineers use CNC drilling equipment for deep-hole drilling, which involves drilling holes ten times deeper than their diameters. Deep-hole drilling is applicable in manufacturing fuel injectors, cylinder blocks, crankshafts, and transmission components.
Choose the Right Metalworking Equipment
A wide range of metalworking equipment is used in the automotive industry. If you’re an auto enthusiast looking for these equipment, identify those that meet your needs. Regardless of the project, it pays to choose equipment that can effectively cut, join, bend, drill, or grind metal parts. Contact your favorite metalworking machinery supplier today for the right equipment for your project.
