Boost Productivity with a Beam Coping Machine: Precision and Efficiency in Structural Fabrication

Coping steel beams is an important part of the process of structural fabrication. These cutouts, or notches, are unique to each beam and designed in such a way so beams fit up tightly to each other, even at acute angles. Coping (or notching) of beams is required to make sure beams and columns fit without interference. It may be necessary to remove portions of the flange or web or a combined section of both.

Manually Coping

In days past beam coping was done by manually laying out the reliefs required and cutting with a hand held torch. Many times these copes, or reliefs were in error and additional cutting needed to be done at assembly, high in the air while a crane, operator and several fabricators all waited making the process very expensive. Other issues with the manual method were also problematic. 

• Layout Time was simply too long.
• Laying out Coping Lines took the most experienced steelworker, making it that much more expensive and valuable.
• Incorrect Layouts were frequent.
• Incorrect Manual Cuts following the Layouts.
• Manual Cleanup took too long as all that manual cutting required chipping and grinding to remove the dross and slag left behind by the torches. 

Beam coping was indeed a necessary evil, it had to be done but doing it accurately enough in the fab shop, without removing too much supportive material was the challenge. Thus the need for a beam coping machine was born.

CNC Beam Coping Machine

The answer for the manual coping method was a CNC profiling Coping Machine. Fabricators could take the detailed engineering data and directly profile the beams in one setup. This not only allowed for more accuracy but it also greatly improved throughput and in-field errors when assembling beams together. The CNC Beam Coping Machine solved the issues

• Eliminating Layout Time
• Lower Paid Machine Operators can perform the Operation
• Layouts are all extracted from approved engineering data greatly reducing layout and cutting errors.
• Cleanup is quick and on some machines, automatic.

By upgrading to a CNC Beam Coping Machine a structural fabrication facility can greatly improve their thruput, accuracy and reliability on the structural steel components they produce. This in turn greatly reduces the errors found in the field and thus the need for hand held, last minute coping operations. 

At Southern Fabricating Machinery Sales, Inc. We are fabricating machinery experts and can assist you with your machinery needs. If you're looking for Structural Fabricating Machinery you can check out our available selection HERE. If you don't see what you're looking for just contact us HERE and describe what best fits your needs, as if we don't show it as available, we are often working with a customer on a very similar solution to meet your needs.