Layout, saw, drill, grind, repeat
Structural work is still one of the most labor-heavy corners of fabrication. Tube and beam get measured, marked, sawn, coped by hand or with a mag drill, cleaned up with a grinder, then fit up on a table by an experienced hand with a square and a tape.
Every one of those steps is a place a dimension can drift, and the drift doesn't show up until fit-up. Then a fitter spends an hour making a joint work that should have taken five minutes — and a welder waits on him.
Plate work has the same story. Plasma-cut plate needs edge cleanup before weld prep, and hole locations that were marked by hand rarely line up as well as the drawing said they would.
Move the labor upstream into the program
A tube laser collapses saw, drill, cope, and layout into one operation. Holes, slots, copes, miters, and part numbers all come off the machine in the same cycle, straight off the CAD model.
Tab-and-slot design is where the real change happens. When your parts locate each other, a weldment goes together square without a fitter chasing it. Fit-up time drops and weld rework drops with it.
Our tube lines run 3 kW to 12 kW, handle standard lengths up to 20' with custom lengths available, and configure with 2, 3, or 4 chucks plus optional auto load/unload. The 5-axis upgrade adds bevels and compound angles for weld prep. For plate and oversized work, a flatbed or gantry system covers the rest of the package.
Shapes and stock in structural work
- Round, square, and rectangular tube
- Angle and channel sections
- Mild steel plate for base plates, gussets, and connections
- Stainless for architectural and exposed structure
- Material exceeding 2 inches thick on higher-wattage systems
Where structural shops get it back
The savings concentrate in fit-up and welding, not in cutting. When parts arrive at the table already coped, marked, and self-locating, your most expensive labor spends its time welding instead of measuring.
Detailing effort moves upstream into the model, which is where it's cheapest to fix. And once the model is right, every part after it comes off the machine right.