Hello Precision Sheet Metal Guys!

Some of you know me and I thought I would share something funny that actually happened to me when I first started in the precision sheet metal trade. My boss had a new job to quote, a simple 18 ga crs frame with welded corners. The size as I remember it was about 6" square and a frame size of about a half inch.

Back then the draftsman would actually bring you a sample and a drawing. So we proceed to view the part and say we would get back to him. The part was painted black texture and looked pretty good, you could see that all corners and the 45's were welded and ground.

We quoted it that way and had to take a cut but got the job.

Fast forward a few years and I'm working at a new place and we get the same job over and they quote it and get it too. Eventually I see the job being punched out and they punched out the entire frame with notches for the welded corners. I thought that was great! I asked about the quote and it was explained to me that sheet metal was so cheap that it was cheaper to throw away the cutout than it was to weld and grind the part. Duh!

What I didn't expect was that they also bent (coined) the corners tight with overlap. They didn't even weld the part, they just ground the corners. The painter used some spray fill and that covered the corners before the black texture.

Have a laugh at my expense! But please share your own.