First Cut, one of South Africa’s leading distributors of capital equipment, cutting consumables and precision measuring tools for the metal, timber, textile, meat, DIY, paper and plastic industries has announced that they have been appointed as the South African representatives of Italian companies Garboli Srl and Comac Srl.

“These two agencies will complement our existing range of international tube and structural steel cutting and manipulation equipment manufacturers that we already represent in South Africa. These companies include Italian machine manufacturer the BLM Group, a company that manufactures tube bending and laser cutting systems, Voortman, a Dutch company that designs, develops and manufactures machinery for the steel fabrication and plate processing related industries, another Italian company CMM, a manufacturer that specialises in horizontal and vertical beam welding and handling equipment and Everising, a Taiwanese manufacturer of bandsaws,” explained Anthony Lezar General Manager of First Cut’s Machine Division.

Finishing – big challenge “One big challenge in tube finishing are the growing expectations about the surface finish. The demand for high-quality finishes on tubing has increased over the years, much of it driven by more use of stainless steel in the medical, food, pharmaceutical, chemical processing and construction industries. Another driving force is the need for painted, powder-coated, and plated tubing. Regardless of the desired result, a properly finished metal tube requires grinding and polishing in many cases,” stated Lezar.

“Finishing stainless steel tube or pipe can be tricky, especially if the product has quite a few bends, flares and other non-linear features. As the use of stainless steel has expanded into new applications, many tube fabricators are finishing stainless steel for the first time. Some are just experiencing its hard, unforgiving nature, while also discovering how readily it is scratched and blemished. In addition, because stainless steel is priced higher than carbon steel and aluminium, material cost concerns are magnified. Even those already familiar with stainless steel’s unique properties are encountering challenges because of variations in the metal’s metallurgy.”

“Garboli has been developing and manufacturing machines for grinding, satining, deburring, buffing, polishing and finishing of metal components for over 20 years, with an emphasis on tube, pipe and bar whether they are round, oval, elliptical or irregular in shape. Once cut or bent metals such as carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminium, titanium or brass will always have a semi-finished look. Garboli offer machines that change the surface of the metal component and give them a ‘finished’ look.”

“Machines with various abrasive processing methods (flexible belt, brush or disc) and in several abrasive grit quality allows you to obtain different finish qualities in accordance to specific requirements. Machines operate with three different working methods – drum finishing, orbital finishing and brush finishing. Again, the type of machine you choose will depend upon the shape of the material and the finish that you want.”

Applications for these components and finished products can be for bathroom fittings such as taps, balustrades, hand rails and stair components, automotive, lighting, engineering plants, construction and building and many other sectors. In many cases they are used in highly visible areas and need to be mirror polished so as to achieve an aesthetically pleasing look,” continued Lezar.

Comac tube and section profiling and bending machines “Comac is our newest addition to complete our line of profiling and bending machines that we offer. They manufacture quality machines for rolling pipe, bar, angle or other profiles including round and square tube, flat angle-iron, U-channel, I-beams and H-beams to achieve the desired shape. Their machines use three rollers, and by adjusting these, the required amount of bending can be achieved,” explained Lezar.

“A profile bending machine is a machine used to perform cold bending on profiles with different shapes and sizes. The most important part of the machine are the rolls (normally three) that apply a combination of forces on the profile, the resultant of which determinates a deformation, along a direction perpendicular to the axis of the profile itself. The three-dimensional lateral guide rolls can be adjusted to work very closely to the bending rolls, minimising the distortion of non-symmetrical profiles. Moreover, the guide rolls are equipped with the tooling to bend angle leg-in. This tooling can also be effectively used for calibrating the bending diameters or recovering radii too tight.”

“All models are available in several versions, conventional, with programmable positioners and with CNC Control.”

“Again, there are numerous applications for these machines in industry. Regardless of whether you’re working with tube, pipe or section, and regardless of the bending process, making the perfect bend boils down to just four factors: The material, machine, tooling, and lubrication,” concluded Lezar.