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Sheet Metal Design

Professional Outsourced Sheet Metal Design Services

Sheet metal design can be found in almost any industry and countless applications. You might use sheet metal within the aerospace, automotive, medical device, and defense industries, to name a few. How do we know that? Our sheet metal experts at CAD/CAM Services have designed unique parts for each of these industries.

Outsourcing your sheet metal designs to a professional CAD company is a great way to save time and money. If you pick the right outsourced CAD team, you’ll be left with high-quality sheet metal parts that can be manufactured easily, and meet all of your design requirements. The best part? It’s done quicker and more affordably than you can probably do in-house.

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What Are Sheet Metal Design Services?

What Are Sheet Metal Design Services?

A sheet metal design service is when you pay an outside company to handle your sheet metal designs. For instance, you could pay our team at CAD/CAM Services to do all of the 3D modeling, and create 2D flat patterns of the sheet metal for your upcoming project.

Since we are outsourced engineers, you’re not paying us a salary or benefits, nor are you paying for our time off. You’re strictly paying for engineering efforts that go into your project.

With our sheet metal design services, we typically structure each project as an hourly or per-part price, and we tell you all of the pricing ahead of time. That means no surprises when you get the final invoice.

Our engineering experts have access to all of the major CAD programs, so we’ll make native CAD files. These files will have more information, and make your life easier when it comes time to start manufacturing.

Why Sheet Metal Design Services Matters

Sheet metal designs can make or break the success of your next project. Something as simple as assuming the wrong bending radius on a sheet can completely ruin your design. This is why it’s so important to outsource to the right sheet metal design company.

Designing a part out of sheet metal comes with a different set of rules than designing a part with standard stock metal — if you don’t know the difference, your project is doomed. Our team of over 100 engineers and draftsmen have explicit experience in the sheet metal space. We know the ins and outs of sheet metal design, and we use a number of common best practices to get the most out of each part.

With sheet metal, an inexperienced designer won’t be able to catch an issue until it’s too late. You might not know there was a problem until the part was cut, bent, and sent to your doorstep. By then, you wasted hundreds or thousands of dollars, and weeks or months of your time.

Avoid those headaches. Don’t waste time or money on your next design, just choose our sheet metal engineers at CAD/CAM Services.

Why Sheet Metal Design Services Matters

We’ve designed entire yachts and aircraft out of sheet metal, plus countless smaller parts. Companies across industries keep choosing CAD/CAM Services for our exceptional sheet metal design, and there are plenty of reasons why:

Better reliability and consistency.

Two great words to describe our in-house engineers are “reliable” and “consistent”. We have a number of quality checks throughout the design process, but the bottom line is that our success can be attributed to our exceptionally talented engineers. They put together designs that continually exceed expectations, and you’ll quickly see the CAD Perfect® difference when you work with us.

Save time and money in the machine shop.

We use sheet metal design for manufacturability (DFM) best practices in every design. The result? Parts that are easier and faster to make in the machine shop. This can save you a considerable amount of time and money.

Fewer headaches during the design process.

Our favorite part of taking over your sheet metal design work is that you don’t have to do it yourself. You probably know all the headaches that go into making a sheet metal design, even an incredibly simple flanged part. Avoid all of those headaches and let our pros handle the work.

Tackle bigger projects and tighter timelines.

Tapping into our resources at CAD/CAM Services is a quick way to temporarily grow your engineering team. With our help, you can hit tighter timelines, handle more work, and get through bigger projects with success.

Get designs that work the first time.

We take a lot of pride in our work, and we have over 35 years of experience when it comes to sheet metal designs. With that said, you can trust our designs. You’ll get parts that work right the first time, and don’t require you going back to the machine shop and asking for expensive changes.

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What Goes into Sheet Metal Design Services from CAD/CAM Services?

Our sheet metal design services can vary a lot from project to project. Some companies just want us to do a final check and optimization of their existing sheet metal designs, most companies want us to create sheet metal designs from scratch, and others want to use us for a part of a larger sheet metal design.

In any case, our services are generally the same: we’re here to provide as much help as we possibly can. We design sheet metal parts in 3D CAD and turn them into manufacturable 2D flat layouts that your machine shop can use.

It all starts with a simple conversation with our engineers. Let us know what you want, when you want it, and how you want the designs delivered. From there, we’ll handle all of the engineering. We deliver files using encrypted services that the DoD trusts, so your trade secrets will stay safe.

We will assign a dedicated Project Manager to the project, and they’ll be your direct line of contact if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or want an update.

What Goes into Sheet Metal Design Services from CAD/CAM Services?
Our Sheet Metal Design Services Include:

Our Sheet Metal Design Services Include:

  • 3D CAD Modeling
  • 2D “Flat Pattern” Layouts for Manufacturing
  • Engineering Simulation, As Needed
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Concepting, Prototyping, and Iterative Design
  • Production-Quality Models and Renderings
  • Assembly and Modeling Work
  • And Much More (Including Custom Services)
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Get a Quote Today

With CAD/CAM Services, you can get 2D flat pattern drawings that are ready for manufacturing in no time. We go the extra mile to keep all the stress off your plate, and we aim to exceed your expectations. See the CAD Perfect® difference when you choose CAD/CAM Services today. Get a free quote to get started, and let us know what you’re looking for. Whether you need a single plate designed, or an assembly of 100 parts, we’re here to help.

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FAQ’s

General CAD Questions
How do I send a sample, in order to get a quote?

Fill out our quote form, attach your files, or simply send us an email. Tell everything about your project, like the model purpose.

For smaller files < 15 MB you can simply email them to us.  For something larger, just drop them in any number of drop boxes like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and others.  Or if you would like, just contact us for a private, hardened link.

It is fine to use most any time of compression such as  *.zip, *.rar, *.tar, *.7z, *.arc, *.LBR, and even *.iso images.

A direct email is [email protected]

We also use a hardened OwnCloud web file sharing platform for unlimited file transfers. We provide unique and very private Web Storage Portals, this also supports file syncing for extreme convenience for you. Because so much of our work is DOD or weapons design work, Security – and confidentiality is very important to us.

Will CAD / CAM Services Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)?

Yes. NDAs are a common part of our business. All data is yours – not ours, and treated as proprietary data and not for public consumption or use. Probably 70% of our work is under NDA agreements. We can generally get these signed within the day.

What is the estimated delivery time?

It depends on the scope of work:

  • 2D drawings – small quantity, normally 48 hours.  We have several customers where they contract to us, keeping 4-8 drafters busy full time.
  • 3D models – complexity dependent, but smaller jobs in 2-3 days. Some models we have spent months on.  Again, we have several customers where they contract to us, keeping 6-10 3D CAD designers busy full time.

Simple jobs have a lead time of 48 hours. Larger projects are delivered and invoiced weekly.

Did you really own the trademark Cad Perfect™, Cad Perfect CAD Conversions™ and Cad / Cam Services™?

Yes, we did back in 2008. We started using Cad Perfect™ back in the early 1990s because all of our customers wanted only real Cad Perfect™ work. Back then the buzz words were terms like machine ready, or DXF Traceover and others.

The problem is, nobody wanted that. They all wanted drawings and models that they did not have to touch. Everybody wanted drawings just as if they hand redrew the work themselves.

Thus, Cad / Cam Services™ was the first company to start offering ONLY Cad Perfect™ work.

Do you support the PPD-21 Directive?

Yes we do, and have now for several years. In addition, we also support the industry specific plans as well.

3D Modeling FAQs
How do you bill 3D CAD services tasks?

Per hour. Hourly rate depends on what CAD software used and typically starts at $75 per hour.  In general, to make this process safer for you, we often provide you a fixed not to exceed the cost as well.  That way, you are protected from an open-ended PO. However, the reality is our fees are based on time. In addition, services in say Catia or NX are more expensive than say Solidworks. Or, simulation services are commonly done by real engineers.

What do you need to give me accurate pricing?

First of all, we need to know the target CAD system and whether you have an existing  template, or set of CAD standards for this project.

The main question is the overall complexity. As each part and assembly consists of different features and elements the best way is to provide us with an example.  Again, a picture is worth a thousand words.

If you already have a model and need us to improve it or update it in any way we need to know which dimensions and features are critical and which can be modified to achieve your desired result.  Even a before and after example works very well. We started with x, and got to this CAD file.

We can also offer you better options if you provide us with the purpose of your project (demonstration, 3D printing, FEA Simulation, CNC manufacturing, etc.).  This helps us better refine the task.

How do you check your models?

We create 2D drawings from our 3D models for QC purposes. We follow aerospace standards and deliver ±.005” accuracy models for all projects.  All of our QC is done by a different person than the designer. On Catia work, we often use Q-Checker for Airbus.

What is the minimum price for your 3D modeling services?

We have a minimum order fee $150.

Reverse Engineering FAQs
What is the average price for Reverse Engineering?

It all depends on the part’s complexity, size and structure.

What do you guys need to provide me with accurate pricing?

We need to know whether you need your parts to be scanned by us. Or many times we can work with 3D scans provided by third-party companies.  The quality of the scan is everything in our business. Anyway, we strongly advise you to use us for both the scanning and the CAD conversion aspects.  That way, we can control the quality. Sometimes we receive poor quality scans which make it impossible to create truly Cad Perfect™ models for you.  By all means, send us a couple of even cell phone photos, and the rough size of the object.  Most of the time, this will provide us enough information to provide a real bid.

The price depends on the part complexity, size, as well as the target file parametres. We need to know whether you need full parametric models, and your desired accuracy. If you tell us the purpose of reverse-engineered models, we can often provide you with possible solutions. The target CAD software may change the price as well. This includes sophisticated Workstation add-on products such as Composites, Catia electrical wiring, mold design, and others.

What is the quality of reverse-engineered parts?

We can provide ±.005” aerospace quality for every model. CT scanned parts can have even higher precision up to ±.001”.

Finite Element Analysis FAQs
What is the purpose of FEA?

A Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a form of non-destructive testing (NDT) that shows how your part reacts to real-world loading events. A common example is running an FEA on a support bracket. The FEA will give results showing how much the bracket deflects, how much reactive force is seen, and the kind of internal stresses the bracket experiences.

FEA results will change dramatically based on the position and angle of the load, how much force is applied, the material properties of the part, and the design of the part itself.

An FEA is used to optimize a part before manufacturing begins. It allows you to find weak points within your part or assembly, and it will predict a failure before you physically make anything. This gives you an opportunity to fine-tune each part to optimize its size, strength, and cost before you start producing it.

What do you need to make an accurate simulation?

The more information we have, the more accurate the simulation results will be. It also depends on what type of simulation you want to run. For a simple FEA, we can run an accurate simulation with just a 3D CAD model and loading/force/pressure information that you want to simulate.

Don’t have a 3D model? Not a problem, our team can make one for you from scratch, and then run an FEA on it.

For a more detailed answer, a well-run FEA will need:

Material properties: What material is the part made out of? We can run different FEAs with different materials to help you pick the right one.

Loading conditions: The size, location, and type of load you want to simulate.

Bonding condition: How is the part held in place? Is it bolted, welded, or just sitting on a tabletop?

A 3D model

For other simulations: Please provide us with all thermal, dynamic, aero, and/or fluid flow information. Feel free to call us and we’ll walk you through what we need.