Since 1976, Estes Design and Manufacturing has been providing fabrication expertise through state of the art technology with their sheet metal fabrication services. Estes' sheet metal processing services help diverse industries design and build quality products.

They provide unparalleled know-how for forming complex configurations, working with aluminum, carbon steel, and stainless steel materials. Their processes are capable of maintaining tight tolerances of ±0.005" for punched or laser cut materials, ±0.010" cut feature to feature, ±0.015" feature to formed edge, and ±0.030" form edge to form edge for formed parts. The company is able to fabricate parts requiring multiple holes, patterns, and bends, offering increasingly competitive costs as part complexity intensifies. A variety of automated processes, from panel bending to laser welding, can be applied to materials in sheet, tubes, or bar form of thicknesses up to 0.500" Steel, 0.375" Stainless Steel, and 0.25" Aluminum. Capable of processing materials up to 120" long x 60" wide, Estes' products include panels, enclosures, weldments, and complete assemblies, with regular 4-week lead times. The company provides low and high production volumes, operating under certified ISO 9001:2015 and following FDA regulations to maintain world-class quality. To learn more about Estes' sheet metal fabrication service highlights, see the table below. For further discussion, contact Estes directly.

Estes Design and Manufacturing provides premier laser welding services for customers in a variety of industries. Estes' laser welding solutions provide extreme precision for joining carbon steel or stainless steel materials using automated CNC equipment.

Appropriate for a number of applications, their 3D laser welding provides finished products with clean welds without compromising strength or aesthetics. The electron beam welding process provides more cost advantages compared to traditional welding, with laser welding being up to 10x faster than traditional MIG welding and up to 40x faster than traditional TIG welding. These processes work on materials in sheet, tube, and bar form up to 0.25" thick. The manufacturing system handles material up to 43" wide, 86" long, and 15" high (3D Work Envelope). Capable of low and high volume production, with typical volumes between 250-1,000 pieces, Estes delivers impeccable panels, enclosures, weldments, and complete assemblies. Following ISO 9001:2015 quality and FDA registration guidelines, quality output is their commitment. For details about this capability, refer to the table below. Contact Estes Design and Manufacturing directly for additional information.

Estes Design and Manufacturing has developed a team of experienced engineers, technicians, and technologies to provide express prototyping services to a wide range of customers. Their functional prototypes allow customers to evaluate an assembly's design and functionality very early in the development stages. Estes provides CAD design for tooling, designing for manufacturability and assembly, consulting, reverse engineering, and small run productions.

The Indianapolis facility has a dedicated in-house fabrication area for prototypes and low volume production work. The Estes Express fabrication processes includes five axis laser cutting, forming, traditional welding, and resistant spot welding, among others. Fully functioning prototypes are formed from aluminum, carbon steel, and stainless steel materials. The company systems are capable of working with sheet metal up to 60" wide by 120" long. With prompt lead times of less than one week, and production volumes between 1 to 50 pieces, Estes Express prototypes are manufactured under the same high quality standards as fully functioning assemblies. Additional details about Estes Express Prototyping services are listed in the table below. For more information on how Estes express prototyping can be of service to you, contact Estes directly.

CLIENT NEED
A small, leading edge communications company was in start-up mode and needed a supplier that could help take a rough product concept and make it a commercialized reality. If that was not enough, the company needed a supplier that could dedicate its people and equipment to the job when needed so that on-the-fly revisions could be incorporated and extremely tight lead-times could be met.

SOLUTION
Over the years, Estes has worked with the client to continuously design and prototype many products, some within a turnaround time of as little as two days. This is possible because one person at Estes is designated the project manager (PM). This PM handles designing, quoting, programming, and fabricating of the project. No hand-offs between Estes team members means tight lead-times are met and on-the-fly revision changes aren’t lost in the shuffle.

RESULT
The prototyping team met the client's need to have a new prototype in three days. This project included having parts programmed, laser cut, deburred, formed, welded, and hardware installed, so that the client could have the parts painted and to their end user in order to fulfill an urgent need. The client provided Estes with the CAD models, and the Estes team programmed and manufactured the product directly from those CAD files. Ultimately, the partnership with Estes allowed this client to be able to meet the needs of its customer faster, resulting in increased sales.

CLIENT NEED
The design for a client's stainless steel box consisted of four pieces formed in a Z-shape at the press brake. These four pieces were then welded at the corners, which caused the stainless steel to warp slightly. The assembly had a brushed, cosmetic flange around the perimeter that would remain visible to the end user. To maintain an appealing look, the welds had to be ground, and then the flange had to be brushed.

SOLUTION
This finishing process was very labor-intensive and costly, so Estes proposed a redesign to the customer. Utilizing their Salvagnini forming cell's capability to form complex, tight-tolerance bends, they formed the part from one blank instead of four. The edges were brought together so precisely they could be laser welded at the seams. The laser welding eliminated the warping and the secondary finishing.

RESULT
The reduction of components and finishing and assembly time dropped the cost of production from $43.73 to $38.73, while improving the quality of the part.