Talons Garage — Shop Updates: Skid Plate Fabrication

Talon2006

Talon2006

Yellow Skull
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
282
Messages
530
Figured I’d start a thread showing some of the work going on in the shop.

Most of what we’re building right now is skid plates and underbody armor. Over time we’ve gone through a lot of different ways of designing and building them — different materials, different fabrication methods, and a fair amount of trial and error figuring out what actually works.

Thought it might be interesting to document some of that here.

I’ll try to post updates when we’re working on something worth sharing — things like cutting parts on the laser, bending armor on the press brake, welding, prototyping, and some of the lessons learned along the way.

A lot of this has been learned the hard way, so I’ll probably include some of the mistakes too.

Today we were running a batch of skid plates on the laser.

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Always satisfying watching a full sheet turn into a stack of parts.

Curious what do you want to see in here?
 
Take us through a step by step of your workflow. Laser them out, CNC press brake, ship?

Any welded assemblies that you build?

Workflow type stuff is the most interesting to me.
 
Figured I’d give a quick look at how the shop is laid out since I’ll be posting updates from here.

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It’s a mix of organized and mid-project most days. When we’re running parts it doesn’t stay clean for long, especially once material starts moving through.

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We try to keep the workflow pretty simple and linear so parts don’t bounce all over the place.


Raw sheet comes in and goes straight to the CNC laser. From there parts move over to deburring and edge finishing on the Loewer 4TD and Apex EZ, then over to the Mitsubishi press brake for forming. After that everything goes to welding, and finally into the powder coating booth and oven.

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Most of the efficiency really comes from that flow — once parts start moving, each step feeds the next one.

We’re running Miller welders for assembly, and having powder coating in-house helps keep everything moving without waiting on outside vendors.

Still making small changes here and there, but the overall flow is working pretty well right now.
 
What material (sheet) are you using? What do the fixtures look like when you are welding up brackets/mount assy's?

The 'big' stuff - cut sheet, bend sheet, powder coat sheet, etc is stuff I have seen/worked with folks that do it, but the smaller pieces - fixtures, etc get a lot less attention so I would like to see more of that.
 
More info in the laser. Initial cost, running cost, issues, and consumable parts?
 
Dethmachinefab said:
More info in the laser. Initial cost, running cost, issues, and consumable parts?
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I have a lot of detailed posts about the laser I am working on. Getting very deep into this. Quick answer, 250k. I don't have a good power costs, but I don't think my bill changed compared to plasma. I think my consumable cost alone was half of the monthly laser payment or something crazy like that. Consumables last forever on the laser, as long as your settings are semi dialed.
 
Talon2006 said:
I have a lot of detailed posts about the laser I am working on. Getting very deep into this. Quick answer, 250k. I don't have a good power costs, but I don't think my bill changed compared to plasma. I think my consumable cost alone was half of the monthly laser payment or something crazy like that. Consumables last forever on the laser, as long as your settings are semi dialed.
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Thats something that people don't think honestly about. They see the 250K and get overwhelmed by the upfront cost and just can't see the value. I bet your belts last longer on the sander too. Aside from the consumables, the labor counts for more than we realize. as well.

I like seeing how people do things differently
 
rockmup said:
Thats something that people don't think honestly about. They see the 250K and get overwhelmed by the upfront cost and just can't see the value. I bet your belts last longer on the sander too. Aside from the consumables, the labor counts for more than we realize. as well.

I like seeing how people do things differently
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Yes and no on the belts. Really its the oil from the P&O process that gets them.

Granted a belt will generally last us a hundred plates or so.... so it works out to a few cents per plate.
 
Talon2006 said:
Yes and no on the belts. Really its the oil from the P&O process that gets them.

Granted a belt will generally last us a hundred plates or so.... so it works out to a few cents per plate.
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I would have thought they'd get de greased before that, so when in your process do you do that and why ?
 
Every skid plate we ship starts as a flat sheet of metal. Getting from that to finished armor takes a handful of machines, and each one does something the others can’t.

Most of the process starts on the CNC laser. We're running an Oree 6KW fiber laser with an exchange table. That's where everything gets cut out — holes, slots, and overall shape. It's probably the most important machine in the shop.

If the laser goes down, everything else basically stops, and it's also the hardest machine we have to keep running consistently.

From there parts go through edge finishing. We're running a Loewer 4TD Disk Master and an Apex EZ sander. The finish the Loewer puts out is what sold me on it — it was a big step up from the Apex, which we still use more for steel parts.

Next step is the Mitsubishi press brake. That's where flat parts actually start turning into armor. The press brake is probably the crown jewel of the shop — between the controller and how smooth it runs, it makes a big difference when you're forming thicker material.

After forming, everything moves over to welding. We're running a Miller 350P setup for aluminum, which has been a big improvement over the earlier setups we tried.

Last step is powder coating. Having that in-house keeps things moving and avoids sending parts out.

Each machine handles one part of the job, but the real efficiency comes from how everything flows together.

We'll go deeper into each of these individually, but this is the setup that keeps everything moving.

Anyone else have one machine in your shop that, if it goes down, everything else basically stops? What is it for you?
 
Talon2006 said:
Anyone else have one machine in your shop that, if it goes down, everything else basically stops? What is it for you?
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Anything that doesn't have a backup worries me somewhat. The two that tend to go down without warning are the cnc plasma and marvel saw will have some odd wire come loose or limit switch to tweak.

I joined the modern word and had the 350 ton Cincinnati outfitted with a cnc control. Thats down currently because something isn't configured right and the backguage won't move anymore. :shaking:
 
Ran a full sheet of skid plates on the laser today. Every part we make starts here — if something is off at this stage, it carries through every step after.

Most of our parts start here. Everything from the overall shape to bolt holes and slots gets cut at this stage, so if something is off here it carries through the rest of the process.

We didn't always have the laser. Originally I was cutting everything on a plasma table, which worked, but the edge quality and hole accuracy just weren't where I wanted them. There was a lot more cleanup before parts could move on to bending.

Switching to a laser made a big difference. Cuts are cleaner, holes come out right, and it saves a lot of time downstream.

We're cutting both steel and aluminum — mostly 1/4" aluminum and 3/16" or 10ga steel — and they behave pretty differently. Aluminum can be a little more finicky, especially on thicker sheets, while steel is a bit more forgiving.

One thing I learned the hard way is how important it is to keep parts from tipping up during cutting. If a part lifts, the laser head can catch it, and that gets expensive fast. I've destroyed a cutting head before because of that.

Now we use tabs to keep parts stable in the sheet while cutting, which has made a big difference.

Running the laser also takes more air than I expected. We ended up running a high pressure setup around 300 PSI to keep things consistent.
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Always a good feeling when a full sheet finishes clean and everything stays where it's supposed to.

Ever had a cut go sideways on you? I’ve killed a cutting head before — curious if anyone else has had an expensive “oh no” moment at a machine.
 
Dethmachinefab said:
Anything that doesn't have a backup worries me somewhat. The two that tend to go down without warning are the cnc plasma and marvel saw will have some odd wire come loose or limit switch to tweak.

I joined the modern word and had the 350 ton Cincinnati outfitted with a cnc control. Thats down currently because something isn't configured right and the backguage won't move anymore. :shaking:
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I feel you. We keep a solid 3+ week inventory to hopefully give us enough time to get up and running again.

Sucks about your press brake, so far my Mitsubishi has been flawless except for when I moved it I got a few control errors... and all I had too do was swap phases around and it was happy again.
 
bgaidan said:
Don't think you had posted pics of the gantry setup before. That's slick and makes way more sense than trying to use a forklift or jib/boom.
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It beats the **** out of the engine hoist inside to use.

It worked great, it’s moved 100’s of thousands of pounds of material, but every single piece of metal drop on the floor would stop it dead or its tracks:

Still love GuidoLyons For giving it to me years ago!
 
I LOVE the jib crane at the sawmill. Having things move nicely and smoothly really speeds up getting it in position to cut.
 
Talon2006 said:
Ever had a cut go sideways on you? I’ve killed a cutting head before — curious if anyone else has had an expensive “oh no” moment at a machine.
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I ran the head on our Omax WJ into a 5"thick chunk of SS on a fancy cut with the 5th axis. It was down for over a week.

I also printed some clips for thin or small sheets like this, way better than holding it down with drops everywhere

WJ Clip.jpeg
 
rockmup said:
I ran the head on our Omax WJ into a 5"thick chunk of SS on a fancy cut with the 5th axis. It was down for over a week.

I also printed some clips for thin or small sheets like this, way better than holding it down with drops everywhere

WJ Clip.jpeg
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Now those are pimp!
 
I like the end stop on the crane. That's pretty close to the design I've had in my head for our plasma table at work except the lifting beam could tram left and right in addition to in and out.
 
That some ratchet strap triangulation going on? Im sure that gets pretty wobbly with the post to girder connection like that.
 
Dethmachinefab said:
That some ratchet strap triangulation going on? Im sure that gets pretty wobbly with the post to girder connection like that.
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Ok, post to girder connection?

Yes…. I actually have some angle braces to cut out and weld up… but the straps work
Pretty good.
 
Talon2006 said:
Ok, post to girder connection?

Yes…. I actually have some angle braces to cut out and weld up… but the straps work
Pretty good.
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The vertical post just bolted to the bottom flange. Nothing much to resist any side loads just wants to flop around up there. Typically you would do a moment connection and also have a beam going the short direction in the corner.

Box tube example and a pic from when I built my canopy.


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Think some triangulation like this would help for my poor design?
 
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