Kip Hanson - Fabricating for Dummies

Fabricating For Dummies

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Copyright 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018941779

ISBN 978-1-119-47404-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-47408-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-47407-4 (ebk)

Step onto the front porch. Take a look around. Theres the teenager across the street, patiently pounding the quarter panels on her 1969 Volkswagen Beetle into shape, then sanding the metal bare so she can apply a little primer paint. That bugs going to be a beauty when shes done.

The kids two houses over are constructing a treehouse, nailing and screwing together the stray bits of sheet metal and scrap lumber found at the housing development five blocks down. Their arboreal creation is sure to block whats left of your sunset views. Have to talk to their dad about that.

And then theres the bridge project on the interstate. Its been going on all summer the endless, inexplicable welding and cutting and pouring that promises to lop fifteen minutes off your commute when finished.

These are a few of the everyday examples of fabricating. Its going on all the time, all around us, and its an important part of our lives. Without fabricating, thered be no central air conditioning in our homes, no kitchen appliances, no car in the garage. None of that would really matter though, because modern day conveniences like gas stations and food processing plants wouldnt exist, let alone windows and doors on the house.

You might be able to catch a chicken for dinner and club it with a rock, but youd need a stone knife to prepare the thing before you could huddle around the fire with the family to eat it. Strip malls and skyscrapers, farm tractors and fryer baskets, prescription drugs and polyester ski jackets fabricating makes it all possible.

Even the paper airplanes you made as a kid (and might still be making). Thats fabricating (albeit of paper rather than metal). Sewn a dress or made an Iron Manlike suit of armor? Yep, both fabricating. Spent all weekend assembling and then reassembling a metal shed because you didnt read the instructions the first time? That is an example of fabricating followed by reworking, an unpopular term in any fab shop.

Still, what exactly does fabricate mean? A quick Google search says its a transitive verb (I shouldnt have slept through English class, as Im still unsure about the transitive part) used to describe the following acts:

• Inventing or concocting (something), typically with deceitful intent
• Constructing or manufacturing (something, especially an industrial product), especially from prepared components

Well, the first definition doesnt apply at all to the fabricating Im talking about. Sorry, Merriam-Webster. The only deceitful intent you might find in a fab shop is someone sneaking out a few minutes early on Friday for happy hour with his or her coworkers. As for the second description, the fabricating I discuss in this book is more about actually making those prepared components than it is about bolting or gluing or welding them together (although assembly is certainly a familiar process at most fab shops).

Granted, its a broad term. Civic construction projects, autobody repair, bridge building, and pipeline laying technically speaking, these fall into the general category called fabricating, and are performed by companies with fabricating as part of their business name, but much of that work falls outside the context of this book.

For the purposes of this book, fabricating and fabrication and sometimes just plain old fab are meant to describe that subset of metalworking concerned with forming, bending, cutting, drilling, finishing, and otherwise manipulating sheets of metal (tubes and pipes pop up occasionally as well, as does welding and even machining).

Whether youre looking for a new profession (one with plenty of eager employers) or just want to know how the heck refrigerators and jungle gyms are made, this book is for you. Youll find out about the machines that shape metal, the tools that slice and form it, the robots that lift it, the software that figures out the best way to process it, along with a few mandatory historical tidbits you can share with your friends in your Thursday night bowling league. So get reading.