Design
Guides

Materials / Reference

Aluminum Alloy & Temper Designations Explained

Decode 5052-H32, 6061-T6, T651, T6511, and more—then see how the complete designation changes bending, machining, welding, ordering, and drawing callouts.

Temper Decoder H + T Codes ANSI H35.1

14 min read

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Materials / Alloy Selection

6061 vs. 7075 Aluminum: Which Alloy Should You Use?

Compare strength, stiffness, machining, welding, corrosion, anodizing, forming, cost, and drawing callouts—then choose the alloy around the part’s real requirement.

6061-T6 7075-T651 Decision Guide

12 min read

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Design / Reference

Slot & Tab Size Chart

Pick a material and a gauge and get the tab width, tab length, slot size and clearance we recommend — drawn to scale, with press fit, slide fit and our self-fixturing default side by side.

Interactive To Scale By Material

Reference tool

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Finishing / Reference

Deburring Size Limits — Weber 1350

The processing window of our automated deburring line: 2″ minimum, 48″ maximum width, unlimited length, and the thickness range — plus which materials run, which need confirming, and which we exclude outright.

Interactive Weber 1350 By Material

Reference tool

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Materials / Reference

Minimum & Maximum Part Sizes

How small and how large a part can be, for all 126 SKUs we stock — with the three limits that decide it, and a checker that tests your flat blank against the whole catalog at once.

Interactive 126 SKUs Min + Max

Reference tool

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Hardware / Reference

Hardware Size Chart

Hole size, outer diameter, and part numbers for every self-clinching fastener we stock — nuts, flush nuts, studs, standoffs, blind standoffs. Pick your sheet material and gauge and the whole catalogue marks what will actually clinch.

Interactive By Material PEM

Reference tool

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Fasteners / Reference

Countersink Size Chart

Outer diameter, through-hole, and cone depth for every 82° inch and 90° metric seat we tool — plus the number no fastener catalogue gives you: the minimum sheet thickness each size needs before the cone leaves a knife edge instead of a seat.

Interactive 82° + 90° Fit Matrix

Reference tool

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Threads / Reference

Tap Drill Size Chart

Tap drills, clearance drills, and minor diameters for every inch and metric thread — with a live thread-percentage dial instead of somebody else’s fixed 75% and 50% columns, and a sheet-thickness check that says whether the thread will actually hold.

Interactive Inch + Metric Thread %

Reference tool

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Materials / Reference

Sheet Metal Gauge Chart

Every gauge from 3 to 30 in inches and millimeters, for aluminum, mild steel, stainless, and galvanized — with cross-sections drawn to scale, a two-way converter, the thicknesses we stock, and a DFM Preflight on every gauge.

Interactive Gauge → mm To Scale

Reference tool

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Laser Cutting

Complete Fiber Laser Cutting Design Guide

Everything you need to know to design parts for our fiber laser: file formats, tolerance stack-ups, minimum feature sizes, kerf compensation, and gang-sheet nesting strategies for production savings.

DXF ±0.005″ Aluminum Steel

8 min read

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CAD File Preparation

STEP vs. DXF: Which File Should You Send?

DXF communicates a 2D cutting profile. STEP can carry the finished 3D part. Learn which format gives your fabricator the information needed to quote, validate, and manufacture your design.

STEP DXF Audio Guide

13 min read + audio

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CAD File Preparation

Everything You Need to Know About STEP Files

A complete guide to STEP and B-rep geometry, AP203, AP214, AP242, export settings, feature recognition, automatic quoting, manufacturing simulation, and validation.

STEP AP242 CAD Handoff

16 min read

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Materials / Global Supply

Where the World’s Aluminum Comes From

Map the chain from bauxite and alumina to primary metal and documented finished-product sources for 5052, legacy 6062-T6, and 7075-T6.

Interactive Map 5052 7075-T6

9 min read

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Design Rules

DFM Rules & Error Code Lookup

Every warning our instant quote can raise, documented and searchable. Type the code from your quote and get the rule in plain English — what it means, why the process behaves that way, and exactly how to fix it in CAD.

166 Codes Lookup Tool DFM

Reference

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Bending / Box Corners

How to Keep Perpendicular Corner Flanges from Colliding

When two 90° flanges meet at a box corner they can occupy the same space after forming. Find Min Corner Relief Distance from Bend Line on the material page, or calculate it here for any TRUMPF V-die.

T − BD/2 + 0.015″ Die Calculator Box Corners

11 min read

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Bending / Controlled Deformation

Hole Pull-Through: Designing Controlled Deformation

When a critical hole cannot move away from a bend, a bow-tie relief can isolate it and a straight slit can redirect the strain. Both strategies can protect the feature. Both reduce local strength.

Bow-Tie Relief Relief Slit Strength Tradeoff

10 min read

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Bending / Feature Placement

How Close Can a Hole Be to a Bend?

Two things ruin a hole near a bend: the metal stretching, and the die shoulder sitting under it. The second is usually the bigger number — and you can see it on your own part in the bend simulator.

0.63 × V Simulator DFM 3243

13 min read

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Bending / Inside Radius

Sheet Metal Bend Radius: How to Choose the Correct Inside Radius

In air bending the die makes the radius, not the punch. The five radii we actually form, why the 1T rule breaks inside a die band, minimum bend radius by alloy and temper, and everything that moves downstream when the radius changes.

0.16 × V Lookup Tool Min. Radius

14 min read

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Laser Cutting / DFM

Why Laser-Cut Parts Warp

How residual stress, heat, geometry, and cut strategy interact—with a practical risk matrix and interactive warping preflight.

WarpingResidual StressInteractive

10 min read

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Operational Manufacturing

In the Driver's Seat

Why the people responsible for the outcome should remain in command of the path from CAD to finished hardware.

ControlDigital ThreadOnshore

7 min read

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Industrial Strategy

At the Base of a New Age

Why the next industrial age belongs to organizations that can turn decisions into verified physical output faster—and build again with what they learn.

VelocitySmart FactoryIndustrial Capacity

9 min read

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Infrastructure / Data Centers

Xeon NC Helps With Data Center Buildout

How Xeon NC manufactured and shipped sheet metal parts for a data center construction customer in under one week—with an interactive U.S. map of where new capacity is being built.

Case Study Interactive Map Smart Factory

10 min read

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American Manufacturing

Reclaiming Industrial Capacity

Why bringing production closer to home can improve total cost, engineering speed, working capital, visibility, traceability, resilience, and the path from prototype to production.

Onshoring Total Cost U.S. Capacity

10 min read

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American Manufacturing

Proudly Built in America

Why domestic manufacturing is national capacity — and why industrial capability should be open to everyone, from Fortune 500 companies to builders in their garages.

Made in USA Innovation Industry

6 min read

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Laser Cutting / History

How Lasers Built the Modern World

From a solution looking for a problem to a tool that cuts steel and enables microchips — the story of how coherent light became industrial infrastructure.

Photonics Microchips Zero Tooling

8 min read

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Bending / Drawing Practice

How to Dimension a Sheet Metal Drawing

Where you put the datum decides which errors add up. Baseline vs chained dimensions, what to tolerance, and why an angle band becomes a length error at the flange tip.

Datums Tolerance Stacks Drawing Practice

10 min read

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Bending / Design Guidelines

Complete Sheet Metal Bending Guidelines

A production-minded guide to formed STEP files, bend data, minimum flanges, radii, hole spacing, reliefs, channels, tolerance stack-up, and preflight.

STEP DFM ±0.5°

12 min read

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3D Printing / Manufacturing

Rapid Prototypes. Real Materials.

Why a useful prototype must test the physics — and how HP MJF turns Nylon PA 12 into functional prototypes, bridge production, and end-use parts.

HP MJF Nylon PA 12 No Tooling

9 min read

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CNC Machining / Cutting Tools

CNC Milling Tools: Matching the Cutter to the Feature

How end mills, face mills, drills, ball-nose tools, thread mills, T-slot cutters, dovetail cutters, and lollipop tools create specific CNC features.

End Mills Holemaking Undercuts

13 min read

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CNC Machining / Tolerancing

Precision Machined. To the Thousandth.

How nominal dimensions become acceptance limits — including how ISO 2768 medium tolerances widen as the controlled dimension grows.

±0.001″ ISO 2768-m GD&T

11 min read

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Metal Finishing / Anodizing

Color That’s Fused, Not Painted On.

How anodizing converts aluminum into a porous oxide, accepts color, seals the surface—and how it differs from powder coating.

Type II Sealed Color MIL-PRF-8625

10 min read

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Volume Pricing / Production

Gang-Sheet Efficiency. Transparent Pricing.

How fixed setup, material yield, shared sheets, batch capacity, and inventory risk become the visible price-versus-quantity curve.

Gang Sheet 10 / 25 / 100+ No Minimum

10 min read

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Manufacturing Technology

CAD Feature Recognition: The Future of Manufacturing

How recognized geometry can connect instant quoting, automatic bend simulation, CNC toolpaths, production, inspection, and shipping through one traceable digital thread.

Feature Recognition Digital Thread Smart Factory

12 min read

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Getting Started

Instant Quoting Design Guide

A step-by-step walkthrough of the Xeon NC quoting platform — material selection, bend setup, hole processing, finishing options, document upload, and notes for the manufacturer.

Material Bendings Finishings RAL

8 min read

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Quality

Toward Perfect Sheet Metal Parts

How the Weber 1350 deburring and finishing machine anchors our quality process — edge rolling, vacuum hold-down, near-mill-finish surface quality, and where we're headed next.

Weber 1350 Edge Rolling Quality

6 min read

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Bending

CNC Press Brake Bending Guide

Bend allowance calculations, K-factor by material, minimum flange lengths, inside radius selection, and how to design multi-bend parts with accurate flat-blank dimensions.

K-Factor Bend Allowance

6 min read

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CNC Machining

CNC Machining Design Guide

Internal corner radii, pocket depth ratios, thread call-outs, GD&T callout conventions, and surface finish selection for aluminum, steel, and engineering plastics.

Threads Tolerances GD&T

7 min read

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CNC Machining / Calculator

Countersink Geometry Calculator

Live cross-section of a countersunk hole: 82° or 90°, outer diameter, through-hole, thickness, remaining land, and top or bottom side — from Xeon NC tooling tables.

82° / 90° Cross-section Calculator

Calculator

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CNC Machining

Countersinking for Sheet Metal

When to countersink, mechanical benefits, thin material limits, choosing the correct angle (82°, 90°, etc.), and how to specify countersinks perfectly in CAD.

Fasteners Holes Design

6 min read

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Surface Finishing / Safety

Breaking Sharp Corners on Sheet Metal Parts

Laser-cut blanks leave knife edges and needle corners. Recommended edge break and outside-corner radius by material and thickness — mostly so nobody gets cut unpacking the part.

R ≥ 0.5T Edge Break Safety

9 min read

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Surface Finishing

Deburring & Surface Finishing

Weber 1350 deburring operations: edge rounding, Scotch-Brite finishing, oxide removal, part size limits, and design rules for through-feed processing.

Weber 1350 Edge Rounding Scotch-Brite

8 min read

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Getting Started

How to Prepare Your CAD File

Accepted file formats (DXF, STEP, STL), step-by-step export guides for SolidWorks, Inventor, and Onshape, plus a pre-flight checklist for every service.

DXF STEP STL

6 min read

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Getting Started

Exporting a Sheet Metal STEP File from Onshape

Every click and every setting, with screenshots — which AP version to pick, the units checkbox that silently scales your part by 10×, and why to send the folded model instead of a flat pattern.

Onshape STEP File Prep

7 min read

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Laser Cutting

What is Laser Cutting?

Learn how laser cutting works at Xeon NC, including materials, assist gases, nozzles, process parameters, and nesting for precision sheet metal manufacturing.

TRUMPF Process Nesting

5 min read

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Weldment Design

Welding Symbols & Joint Types

A visual AWS-based guide to the arrow, reference line, basic weld symbols, supplementary marks, dimensions, contours, and the five foundational joint arrangements.

AWS Symbols Joint Types Visual Chart

12 min read

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Weldment Design

Welding Defects & Laser-Cut Design Tips

Diagnose 12 common weld conditions and design better laser-cut joints with intentional fit-up, assist-gas edge preparation, material selection, distortion control, and inspection access.

Weld Quality Joint Design Cut Edges

10 min read

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Laser Cutting

The Heat-Affected Zone (HAZ)

Understanding how thermal exposure alters material composition during laser cutting. Learn how thickness, hot spots, and density impact part hardness and warp.

Thermal Hardening Geometry

5 min read

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Laser Cutting

Understanding Laser Kerf

Learn what laser kerf is, why software toolpath offset is critical, and how material thickness directly impacts your minimum allowable cut width and hole sizes.

Dimensions Accuracy Thickness

4 min read

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Finishing

The Powder Coating Process

Explore dry finishing, critical part hanging requirements, and why powder coating severely outperforms wet paint and anodizing in volume manufacturing durability.

Durability Hanging Finishing

6 min read

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3D Printing

3D Printing Design Guide

Wall thickness minimums, overhang rules, thread insert heat-set best practices, supported vs. unsupported geometry, and material selection guide for FDM and SLA parts.

FDM SLA Nylon PA12

5 min read

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Laser Cutting

How to Prepare Your CAD File

A step-by-step walkthrough for preparing DXF and STEP files from AutoCAD, Fusion 360, and SolidWorks — ready to submit with zero back-and-forth.

DXF STEP Layers

4 min read

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Finishing

Anodizing Guide: Type II vs. Type III

When to specify Type II vs. Type III hardcoat anodize, how anodizing affects dimensional tolerance, color options, masking considerations, and how to call it out on your drawing.

Type II Hardcoat Color

5 min read

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Materials

Mild Steel for Laser Cutting

Compare A1008 cold rolled, A1011 hot rolled and HRPO, A36 plate, and coated sheet—then choose the right cut edge, fabrication route, finish, and ordering callout.

A1008 A1011 A36

10 min read

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Materials

Understanding Cold-Rolled Steel Sheet Metal

What cold rolling changes, how ASTM A1008 designations work, and how to specify thickness, laser cut, bend, weld, coat, and protect carbon steel sheet for U.S. production.

A1008 CS Type B CRS

15 min read

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Materials

Stainless Steel Sheet Metal: 304, 316 & More

A U.S.-focused guide to 201, 301, 304/304L, 316/316L, 321, 409, 430, and 17-4 PH — specifications, finishes, laser cutting, bending, welding, passivation, and drawing callouts.

304L 316L ASTM A240

16 min read

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Materials

Titanium Sheet Metal: Grade 2, Grade 5 & More

A U.S.-focused guide to Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, and 23 — ASTM and AMS specifications, laser cutting, bending, welding, finishes, safety, certification, and drawing callouts.

Grade 2 Grade 5 ASTM B265

15 min read

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Materials

Copper Sheet Metal: U.S. Alloy & Fabrication Guide

How to select and specify C11000, C10100, C10200, and C12200 copper sheet in the U.S. — ASTM product standards, tempers, exact thicknesses, laser cutting, bending, joining, finishes, and drawing callouts.

C11000 ASTM B152 Sheet Metal

12 min read

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Materials

Sheet Metal Material Selection Guide

Choosing between 5052-H32, 6061-T6, A36 HR steel, 304 stainless, and brass for your project — a practical comparison of machinability, corrosion resistance, strength, and cost.

5052-H32 6061-T6 304 SS

6 min read

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Laser Cutting

Understanding Tolerances & Inspection

A practical guide to laser cutting tolerance stacks, how we inspect parts, what ±0.005″ really means in production, and when to call out tighter tolerances on your drawing.

±0.005″ Inspection

5 min read

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CNC Machining

Thermomechanical Heat Generation

Understanding machining heat, friction-induced buildup, and how thermal profiles vary across different materials during fabrication.

Thermal Friction Machining

6 min read

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CNC Machining

The Engineer's Guide to GD&T

Decoding Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing: A complete breakdown of symbols, feature control frames, and how they apply in precision manufacturing.

GD&T Tolerances Symbols

8 min read

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Pricing

How to Get a Discount on Your Order

Every way to lower your per-part price — automatic quantity breaks, bundling parts on shared sheets, stock-material savings, batch finishing, repeat-order setup waivers, mailing-list promotions, and how to apply a discount code at checkout.

Pricing Discounts Promo Codes

6 min read

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Pricing

Why Ordering More Costs Less

The cost structure behind custom CNC and sheet metal work — how setup time amortizes across quantity, where nesting and batch finishing savings come from, and the volume tiers where the biggest discounts unlock.

Pricing Setup Cost Volume Discount

8 min read

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Bending

Picking Tooling for the Bend

How to choose the right punch and V-die from material, thickness, and target radius — air bending fundamentals, the V × T rule, the 16% radius rule, tonnage math, and Trumpf / WILA tooling reference.

Air Bending V-Die Selection Tonnage

9 min read

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Bending

Our Press Brake Tooling Library

Every punch and V-die we run, the material thickness each die covers under the 6–12 die-width rule, and full technical data for each WILA OW / EV tool — with a thickness coverage map and per-tool spec cards.

Tooling Inventory 6–12 Rule Thickness Coverage

7 min read

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Bending

The Bend Affected Zone (BAZ)

How deformation around the bend radius impacts hole placement, slot positioning, and feature design in sheet metal — with minimum clearance formulas and material-specific rules.

BAZ Hole Placement Design Rules

7 min read

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Bending

Bending Ontology & Material Specs

The complete bending vocabulary — bend deduction, bend allowance, K-factor, inside radius, neutral axis, and minimum formed flange — plus a live lookup tool for tooling, K-factor, and bend deduction on every material we run.

Bend Deduction K-Factor Calculator

9 min read

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Bending

The ACB Laser on Our TRUMPF 5170

How Automatically Controlled Bending measures the real angle of your part mid-stroke and compensates springback before the ram retracts — why that means ±0.5° on the first part, with no test bends.

ACB Laser Springback TRUMPF

8 min read

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Bending

Reverse Bend Clearance Checker

Interactive tool: enter your base dimension and return flange height to see whether our punches can reach the bend. Envelopes computed live from the real traced tool profiles.

Interactive Clearance Tooling

Interactive tool

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Bending

Part-on-Part Collision

The interference that only exists mid-stroke. Why springback forces the brake to over-bend past your angle, how far that actually moves a flange, and how much clearance a formed feature needs to survive it — plus two interactive 3D parts you can run through the same press brake stroke, one that collides and one that clears.

Collision Springback Interactive 3D

10 min read

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Getting Started

Precision in Pursuit of the Perfect Part

What it actually takes to make a perfect part — the right machines, 50 years of collective experience, custom-built production software, the best sheet metal material, and a quality control process that only lets perfect parts ship.

Quality Control Precision Our Standard

6 min read

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Laser Cutting

What Is Fiber Laser Cutting? (How It Works)

A technical deep dive — how the beam is born in a doped fiber, delivered to the sheet, focused to a microscopic spot, and used with assist gas to cut metal. Plus the parameters that matter and why fiber beat CO₂.

How It Works Assist Gas Fiber vs. CO₂

8 min read

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Getting Started

Xeon NC vs. a Local Machine Shop

Compare instant quoting and no-minimum manufacturing with the traditional local-shop workflow—and learn which route fits CAD-ready production, repairs, prototypes, and scale.

Instant Quote No Minimums Buyer Guide

8 min read

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Getting Started

What the Online Fab Shop Means for You

An online fab shop puts an entire smart factory behind a browser tab. See what that means for small businesses, builders, and designers — no minimums, no machine overhead, instant pricing and DFM.

Small Business Builders Designers

6 min read

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Pricing

Planned Production: Save on Shipping

A longer lead time is the easiest way to cut your shipping bill. Plan ahead and we can ship ground or LTL instead of expensive air freight — often 4–5× cheaper. See ground vs. air vs. LTL cost examples.

Lead Time Ground vs. Air Savings

6 min read

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Shipping

Shipping at Any Scale

From one-off prototypes to full production runs, we ship it all — small parcel, LTL freight, and full truckload. See how we match the right mode, packaging, and carrier to your order to optimize cost and lead time.

Parcel & LTL Truckload Logistics

6 min read

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Shipping

LTL Shipping Zones Map

Interactive coverage map — click anywhere in the US to see straight-line distance from our hub and which LTL shipping zone the location falls into.

Interactive Freight LTL

Interactive map

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