When Steely Products was formed in 1970, it was a pioneer in using tubular steel to make lightweight and durable trolleys. We still use tubular steel to make quality material handling and storage equipment today, and we rely on our team of metal fabricators to make sure that every piece of equipment is well constructed, strong and reliable. It takes skill and attention to detail to be a metal fabricator.
What a metal fabricator does
A metal fabricator is expected to be highly skilled and capable of complex and detailed work. They will have a range of skills and will work with sheet metal, pipes and tubular steel. They know how to shape and join metal together so that it will not come apart.
Working with metal and machinery can be dangerous, so a metal fabricator must have knowledge of all the relevant health and safety regulations and follow guidelines to carry out fabrication operations efficiently and safely.
The job of a metal fabricator is not easy, as it requires stamina, strength and a high degree of concentration.
Fabricator training
A metal fabricator needs technical or vocational qualifications. Most metal fabricator courses take three to four years and are a mixture of workplace and college training. A typical course has blocks of full-time college training in the first year, followed by five days working and one day in college each week during the second year. The third and fourth years are usually spent full time at work, with regular assessments by the college before the qualification is awarded.
Students do not have to have high academic qualifications to start training as a metal fabricator. Four GCSEs are the minimum usually required, preferably including maths, English and science and technology.
There are many job opportunities for metalworkers in three main job areas: fabrication, maintenance and installation.
The process of fabrication
The process of fabricating equipment made from metal starts with a technical drawing or a detailed design on computer-aided design (CAD) software. From this design, a full list of the tools, processes and materials needed to make the equipment is compiled. Tubular steel is then cut and bent to the exact specifications of the design.
Steely Products does not mass manufacture equipment. We make equipment in small batches, with metal fabricators using a combination of manual and machine processes. This makes it straightforward to modify equipment to the end user’s specifications without the need for expensive and time-consuming re-tooling.
Quality equipment built to last
Steely Products has a great team of metalworkers. Our team is dedicated to quality, knowing that our end-users expect equipment that will not let them down under heavy daily use. We invite visitors to our workplace to see our metalworkers in action.
We promise our customers equipment that is designed to work and built to last. Without our team of skilled metalworkers, we could not fulfil this promise.
To find out more about our equipment and how it is made, call us or use the contact form below.
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