Metal - sheet metal machines 3655

Exapro is the industrial marketplace for your purchases and sales of used sheetmetal machines. Here you can buy your second-hand machines at very interesting prices. Amongst many other sectors: bending machines, complete unwinding units, hydraulic shears, guillotines, laser cutting machines, mechanical shears, various sheetmetal presses, plasma-gas-waterjet cutting machines, press brakes, punching-nibbling machines, rolling machines, slicers, welding machines+. Here are some of the most current machines manufacturers : MULLER, HARE, FEINTOOL, LBM, SMERAL, ERFURT, HACO, LVD, PIESOK, PROMECAM, MESSER GRIESHEIM, SAF, AMADA, COLLY, BYSTRONIC, TRUMPF, SAF, SOCAD, ECKOLD, EUROMAC, AKYAPAK, LISSE, ZM, EISELE, RGA and many others. Adding your machines on sale is free of charge and will help you reach hundreds of thousands professionals every month.

Sheet metal machines: Operating principles

Sheet metal machines are widely used in the metalworking industry. Sheetmetal machines cut, bend, roll, press flat pieces of metal that already went through a thickening process. However, this type of equipment has to be differentiated from machine tools, that cut and shape rigid materials while sheetmetal machines only deal with flat workpieces.

What is sheetmetal?

Sheet metal are thin, flat pieces or coiled strips of metal. Sheetmetal rolling is the industrial process to give metal a flat, thin shape. The rolling process is the following: metal passes through pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, depending on the metal temperature while being rolled, so the workpiece will be shaped according to predetermined dimensions.

What type of metal?

There are two commonly used materials to obtain sheetmetal: Stainless steel (3 common grades: 304, 316, 410), very popular for its quality and lower costs, and aluminium (4 common grades: 1100-H14, 3003-H14, 5052-H32, and 6061-T.), which is also commonly used because of its flexibility.

About the machines

On the sheet metal market are many types of machines available, which are constantly improved to be more precise and sophisticated. However, some models remain more popular, as for instance:

Laser cutting machines: Correspond to sheet metal cutting operations that are mostly based on CNC (computer numerical command). Laser cutting has turned to computer to perform a more precise cut. During the process, the metal is burnt and heated by a laser beam moving over its surface to be cut.

Press brakes: Machine used in bending operations to give sheetmetal an angled shape. They usually have an open frame which consists in a flat surface where the material is placed. Then, the workpiece is clamped between a matching punch and die to be curved according to a predeterminate bend. Several types of press brakes are to be found on the market, such as mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and servo-electric press brakes.

Punching machines: Metalworking process to cut holes in material. Two main types of punching machines are common in the metalworking industry: simple die set or CNC operated punch presses. Both of them consist of a bed plate where the workpiece ist held. Die sets involve two punches that form a hole in metal by pressing together. CNC punching machines perform operations that are controlled by a computer. The CNC controller moves and drives the table to the desired position to allow the punch to cut holes on the right position.