Home | About | Capabilities | Industries | Jobs | Case Studies | RFQs | FAQs

Sheet Metal Drawing DON’Ts

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Britney Blue (Payne)

We received a request from a reader that wanted us to touch base on two very common sheet
metal drawing mistakes. So we have created this blog post to strictly focus on these issues. When
it comes to mechanical engineering and actual sheet metal fabrication, there are a couple grey
areas that engineers should know about if they have never fabricated sheet metal. One has to deal
with flat patterns and the other is sheet metal bend deductions.

Flat Patterns

Many times engineers will include the flat pattern on the dimensional drawings to illustrate what it
looks like prior to forming and finishing. However, it is pointless to include flat patterns on prints if
the part is formed and finished. Why? The dimensions of the flat pattern will not be taken into
consideration when manufacturing. Reason being is that when manufacturing, prints need to
illustrate the finished part dimensions. Since each fabricator or manufacturer has their own bend
deductions, it is up to the manufacturer how to dimension the flat pattern to result in the finished
part as per the drawing. Therefore, when designing a part, some engineering/design programs
may ask for you to designate the K-Factor. Since the K-Factor is relative to the flat pattern, and the
flat pattern is impractical to the fabricator, the K-Factor is not significant.

Bend Deduction

So to touch a bit more on the bend deduction or K-Factor (for the flat pattern), you might be
asking, why do manufacturers have different bend deductions? Why can’t they all be the same and
make things less complicated? The reason the flat pattern is insignificant to a manufacturer is
because they have their own bend deductions based on the bend radius and angle, the material
thickness and stiffness, the tooling used, and how much contact the tooling makes with the metal.
Not all fabricators have the same tooling. Therefore, by providing prints that illustrate the complete
finished part and its corresponding dimensions, the sheet metal fabricator is able to create their
own bend deductions on the part that will meet the print.

Estimating Standpoint

It is important to add (from an estimator of manufacturing standpoint) that is it practical/necessary

for the designer to always view the flat pattern of a formed part to ensure their design will unfold.
We have seen numerous instances where the model created cannot be unfolded without conflict.
On a side note, the flat pattern is definitely useful for estimating the fabrication of a part. If we have
a flat pattern, we are able to use that as the part size and do not have to spend time calculating
the estimated part size from the formed dimensions. It does serve a useful purpose for estimating,
just not for manufacturing and/or inspection of the part.

Final Thought

When engineering a part that will be fabricated by an outside manufacturer, it can be helpful to
speak to the manufacturer to find out about the machines they use and their capabilities. It’s also
helpful to know what in-house tooling they have which can help save time and cost on your end
because the parts won’t have to be customized with custom tooling. When providing the
manufacturer with drawings to manufacture to, leave the ‘how-to fabricate’ up to them since that’s
their expertise, and DO NOT include flat patterns!

For more information about manufacturing prints, check out these articles:

·         5 Steps: How to Manufacture a Product

·         How To Read Lines on a Drawing

·         Parts of a Manufacturing Drawing

·         Manufacturing Prints – View Types

·        Sheet Metal Dimensional Drawing Example

·         Minimum Requirements to Submit an RFQ

This entry was posted in Drawings, Drawings 101, Engineering 101 and tagged bend
deductions, engineering mistakes, flat pattern, k factor, sheet metal prints by Britney Blue
(Payne). Bookmark the permalink [https://www.vista-industrial.com/blog/sheet-metal-
drawing-donts/] .

1 THOUGHT ON “SHEET METAL DRAWING DON’TS”

Tate Leitz
on July 20, 2020 at 8:28 pm said:

The first point about the flat pattern is not necessarily correct. I need to account for the K-
factor in my models and drawings because my parts are lasercut before going to my
fabrication shop.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.