Get the most out of your ironworker

Whether you are punching, shearing, notching, or bending, there are different ways to customize an ironworker to make it work more efficiently.

"You should certainly think about custom dies," said Goldsmith. "They allow for more complex punching and coping and can be real time-savers."

Customized tooling and attachments, like a simple coping attachment, allow you to perform pipe coping that notches the end of pipes cleanly to fit them together for welding. This eliminates the need for secondary milling, sawing, or grinding operations. Examine your common operations and applications to see if there are ways to customize the various workstations to expand the use of the machine.

"Custom tooling can be a huge asset," said Kuchen-becker."We, for example, and I'm sure some others, have our own in-house special tooling department solely to produce and build custom tooling. Fabricators can send us a drawing or if they have an idea, we can draw it up for them. It's a great service to take advantage of."