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CAD Design

CAD Design with Salamander

CAD design is one of the key first stages in the sheet metal fabrication process, and is a part of nearly every project we work on here at Salamander Fabrications. We know that quality products come about as a result of precise manufacturing, and careful forward planning, which is where 3D CAD design (Solidworks) comes in. With a dedicated team of expert CAD designers in-house, we have the knowledge, skills and experience to help create cost-effective designs that are fit for purpose, without compromising on quality, longevity or appearance.

Our design team have extensive experience not just in product design and creation, but also specifically within a sheet metal context, so have extensive knowledge of sheet metal project capabilities, which allows us to speed up the design process and reduce the need for design amendments.

  • We also offer Bysoft laser nesting software within our technical and design departments, saving our customers money and time in their projects
  • Document control means every one of our clients has a full archive of any revisions/amendments to designs
  • We offer an “exploded view” for complex assemblies in our designs.
  • Using Solidworks, our team can also render fabrication models.

There are a huge range of CAD technologies available to companies in the sheet metal fabrication sector and at Salamander Fabrications we’re passionate about always staying ahead of the curve and utilising the best, most modern technologies available, including SOLIDWORKS, an industry-leading software package specialising in both 2D and 3D CAD design. We update our Solidworks package annually in order to offer the most cutting-edge technology and most expansive capabilities to our customers.

CAD design

Working with Salamander Fabrications on your CAD Design Project

From our hometown of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, we’ve been delivering high-quality sheet metal fabrication services to customers all across the UK since 1973, and we’ve always prided ourselves on our devotion to great quality, first-rate customer service, and an unparalleled end product.

Salamander is rigorous not just in terms of the completed product’s quality, but also in terms of forming deep and long-term relationships with clients! Because our full-service staff is situated entirely in the United Kingdom, you can rest assured that all aspects of your project, including CAD design, will be handled in-house.

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What is CAD Design, and Why is it Important?

CAD stands for computer aided design, and it refers to using a range of different computer software programmes to help make designs better and more effective. This is the first stage in the majority of our sheet metal fabrication projects, as it allows us to accurately set out what it is that we need to build, and how to get the metal sheets to that stage. By creating a 2D or 3D design prior to construction, we can make sure that your products will be fit for purpose and that we’re able to create all of the necessary parts to make them perfect.

CAD design can be used to increase productivity and get designs off the ground more quickly, to optimise an existing design to function perfectly in a slightly different context, create more precise designs, build a database of designs to help speed up manufacturing and to improve communication between designers and clients. CAD design helps to improve the quality of our service, but it also saves time and allows us to continue to offer affordable designs and projects to both old and new customers. We’re committed to offering the best customer experience we can, and that includes our costs.

CAD design doesn’t just give you a visual representation of your finished product though, it also creates a plan that manufacturing tools and CNC machines can read and then execute, without the need for manual conversion of the design into something the machines can then understand. CAD designs will often include graphics of the objects in 2D or 3D form, but will also contain a variety of technical information, the same way traditional, manual technical drawings would. This includes elements such as the materials to be used, the dimensions of each individual component as well as the finished product, the processes that are needed to create these components, and the tolerances of each individual component, as well as the finished product. They can be made in 2D or 3D environments, depending on the needs of the client and the project. CAD has been used for many years in a wide range of industries, including the automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, as well as for industrial and architectural design among others.

How to Create a CAD Design Using CAD Design Software

Working with CAD Design software is a complex process and requires skills from all kinds of different disciplines, including art & design, IT and computing, engineering and much more.

When our designers create an initial model in SOLIDWORKS which will set out the geometry of the design, including points, lines, arcs and curves, conics and splines. We’ll also incorporate different dimensions at this point, to ensure that all the elements of the design fit perfectly together. Designs can also be used to define the tangency, parallelism, perpendicularity, and concentricity of different features within the design if required – this can be done using both 2D and 3D design. Because of the way that SOLIDWORKS software is built, the needs of the design come before that of the preset features of the software, which gives our team the flexibility needed to create completely bespoke and accurate designs, rather than being limited by the geometry of a pre-existing design. If the design needs to be imported into a 3D format, we can do that at this point, to provide our clients with a clear, transparent view of the end product they can expect, as well as giving our manufacturing team all of the insight and instructions they need to accurately build the product.

Using CAD software not only results in precise and highly functional designs, but also aids the manufacturing process. Within CAD software, we can create a range of rules that tell our sheet metal folding, bending and punching machines exactly what is required, and can also build custom rules for new projects, so that there’s no need to manually input instructions before entering the manufacturing stage of the process. Once we’ve got a design created and implemented, we can also save it for future reference, making the construction process much quicker and easier if repeat orders are required.

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Contact Us Today

To find out more about Salamander Fabrications and the work we do or to see how we can help with your next project, please contact sales@salamanderfabs.com or call to speak to a member of our Sales Team on 01484 843599, and we’ll be happy to help.

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Do you need to talk to us about an upcoming project? Or would you just like to find out more about us and what we do? Fill in the form below and one of team members will get back to you.

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