Metalworking

How far should a hole sit from an edge or a bend? The DFM minimums that keep holes from tearing out or distorting, with tables and diagrams.

How tight can you bend sheet metal before it cracks? A practical minimum-bend-radius guide by material and thickness, with grain direction, springback, and DFM rules.

Same substrate, three coating philosophies. The right pick depends on what touches the part next: paint, weather, a welder, or the customer’s hand.

5052, 6061, and 3003 are not interchangeable. A practical guide to picking the right aluminum alloy for a sheet metal part, by formability, strength, welding, and finish.

Same part, two materials. Material substitution upgrades the alloy or coating in an existing sheet metal part without redesigning the geometry, preserving the tooling and most of the validation work. Run through a DFM lens, it is often the lowest-risk, fastest way to fix corrosion, strength, weight, finish, or supply problems.

Three identical panels, three different stainless grades. Picking the right one is rarely about the part — it’s about the environment, the budget, and how the part gets made. Welcome to Atlas Tech Talks, a series dedicated to sharing insights, best practices, and technical know-how from the world of sheet metal fabrication. In each post,…