Metalworking service centres typically serve a wide range of industries, providing valuable services for both small and large-scale manufacturing operations. They will offer short and large component production runs and they can help companies streamline their production processes by offering a combination of raw material services combined with advanced processing capabilities.

More and more of these service centres are finding ways to bring additional processing in-house too thus further reducing the risk of problems associated with contracted suppliers not delivering orders on time, and at the end of the day, compromising the customer. Of course, aspects like quality control can also be more closely observed.

Sheetmetal Solutions, based in Somerset West, Cape Town, is one such service centre committed to offering a turnkey sheetmetal production solution for its customers. Owners Sarel Morkel and Laurence Kirkwood met through a mutual lift club while travelling to and from Paarl for work in the early part of their working careers.

Sheetmetal Solutions, based in Somerset West, Cape Town, make use of a number of press brakes generally bending material in thicknesses of 1.2mm to 3mm

Having both partly completed tech degrees before both deciding to rather obtain trade qualifications, they then both worked in the sheetmetal fabrication industry for a number of years before being offered an opportunity by a customer to start their own business. Morkel says: “This we did in a shed on a farm here in Somerset West in 2007. No commercial bank was prepared to finance us at the time, but the machine dealer we were working with offered us a buy back guarantee and that’s how we got started.”

Morkel and Kirkwood remained in that facility for a few years before outgrowing it and found that they needed a larger space to operate from. They initially rented a facility in Somerset West before deciding to buy a plot of land in the same area and built their own factory in 2016, which they still operate from today.

With a collective 50 plus years of experience working in the sheetmetal fabrication industry, Sheetmetal Solutions now offers its services that include bending, punching, laser cutting, welding, assembly, powder coating and custom designing of products to a wide range of clients that span a broad range of industries.

Sheetmetal Solutions bend and cut a wide range of products and components

Components manufactured include digital media enclosures and self-service kiosks that have screens enclosed within the fabricated enclosure such as those you might find in drive through fast food housings, digital information displays in malls, solar related enclosures, energy storage and battery backup systems enclosures, electrical enclosures, extractor fan hoods and many other products for a range of industries

Examples of what they manufacture for clients include digital media enclosures and self-service kiosks that have screens enclosed within the fabricated enclosure such as those you might find in drive through fast food housings, digital information displays in malls, solar related enclosures, energy storage and battery backup systems enclosures, electrical enclosures, extractor fan hoods, products for the petroleum industry, mining industry, packaging industry ,aeronautics industry, products for the agricultural industry such as feed troughs, and virtually anything a client might approach them with.

“We work with mild steel, aluminium and stainless steel – a lot of which is 3CR12 – and we cut from 0.5mm to 20mm in mild steel and stainless steel and 16mm in aluminium. We can bend in the 0.5mm – 5mm range up to 3m, 6mm to 2.5m and 8mm to 2m lengths.”

The business partners started their business with a Trumpf 180 punching machine, a borrowed Amada press brake, an ACL guillotine and a welding machine. As the operation grew, they added and retired machines as they needed to keep up with the growing demand and today, they have mix of seven CNCs that include a 4kW JFY fiber laser, a 3m 150 ton JFY press brake, various Amada press brakes, two Trumpf punching machines, the original ACL guillotine and welding machines operated by three welders.

Sheetmetal Solutions’ Amada Promecam press brakes are still in daily use and function very well

Sheetmetal Solutions have a 4kW JFY fiber laser to cut sheet on which they can cut up to 20mm thickness

“Though some of the original machines that we purchased still function very well, the modern technology offered by the JFYs give us much tighter tolerances and of course are much faster at what they do. On the 4kW JFY fiber we can cut up to 20mm mild steel and stainless steel. We do get clients that will just bring us sheet to cut for example, or we will even have customers that just want us to just bend sheet for them. We are a service centre, so if someone needs a one-off design and product manufactured, we will happily do that but are also very comfortable doing large production runs of thousands.”

“It’s interesting, when it comes to production work, a punching machine can be way more efficient than a laser, depending on the design of the product or component. We found that a lot of people didn’t understand this. They would walk in here and ask, ‘Do you have a laser?’, and we would say no, we would use a punching machine, and they would say, ‘Ok, no thank you.’”

Sheetmetal Solutions’ two Trumpf punching machines are integral to their operations. When it comes to production work, a punching machine can be far more efficient than a laser, depending on the design of the product or component

“So we got a laser. Obviously, it’s job specific, but once you have the punching machines and their tooling set up for a specific production run, while it starts off slowly, it will overtake the production time capabilities of the laser down the line. The laser performs much better for 1-off jobs, thicker material, jobs with lots of detail and jobs that don’t require a lot of holes or venting for example.” The punching also has forming capabilities.

“But at the end of the day, once the components or products have been bent, assembled, welded and powder coated – something else we do here in-house – you can’t even tell if it was done using a laser or a punching machine. The other thing with a laser is that clients expect much shorter lead times. This is possible due to the time saving on set up and new integrated software for programming the laser. We design using ZWCAD 3D and ActCAD.”

Sheetmetal Solutions employ around 20 people today, all of whom have been trained up from scratch and operate from 1 000m2 under roof.

Sheetmetal Solutions is owned and operated by Sarel Morkel and Laurence Kirkwood. They recently installed a 3m 150-ton JFY press brake

“For example, an employee that started off as a casual is now operating a laser, another employee that was also a casual is now operating a punching machine – our very first employee ever is still working for us. Most of our staff working here have been here more than 10 years. This kind of relationship instils a sense of pride, and everybody has a good understanding of what everyone else needs to do.”

Sheetmetal Solutions also design and manufacture customised storage boxes that go on the back of recreational camper vans, are currently busy with R&D on bumpers, bend sheet for drawer systems that get fitted into recreational vehicles, fabricate underbody/steering protection plates for these vehicles as well as will design and manufacture other accessory components for these vehicles. They will also manufacture and supply accessories like clip systems and self-clinching nuts and studs.

For further details contact Sheetmetal Solutions on TEL: 021 851 0474 or visit www.smetal.co.za