Notching

NOTCHING

Notching is a metal-cutting process used on sheet metal or thin barstock, sometimes on angle sections or tube. A shearing or punching process is used in a press, so as to cut vertically down and perpendicular to the surface, working from the edge of a workpiece. Sometimes the goal is merely the notch itself, but usually this is a precursor to some other process: such as bending a corner in sheet or joining two tubes at a tee joint, notching one to fit closely to the other.

Notching is a low-cost process, particularly for its low tooling costs with a small range of standard punches. The capital cost of the punch press can be expensive though, so small fabrication shops often out-source their notching work to a press shop or notching specialist.[1] Notching of large or heavy sections, particularly for large tube fabrication or HVAC, is increasingly carried out by plasma cutting rather than punch tools.

The accuracy of punch notching is good, depending on the care with which it’s carried out. For manual folding work, prior notching can often improve resultant accuracy of the folding itself.

The speed of notching is usually limited by manual handling when loading the workpieces into the press. Pieces some feet long may be manually loaded into a single-stroke press. Smaller pieces are still generally hand-fed, limiting speeds to perhaps 100 strokes/minute.

Almost any workable metal can be notched. It’s particularly suitable where the metal is otherwise awkward to drill, such as stainless steels, titanium or previously heat-treated aluminium alloys.

Multipunch Notching Machine