It’s one of those things you can’t do without. Every day, you take advantage of it. But chances are you don’t even know about it. It keeps you safe. It gets you where you’re going. It supports you when you sleep. Chances are it isn’t obvious already, but metal fabrication is one of the most unsung heroes of your life – and it impacts you every day.
Metal fabrication dates back to some of the earliest recorded history, having a place in ancient societies ranging from the Indus River Valley civilizations, the ancient Egyptians, and the Romans. With that said, metal fabrication with its many applications has literally shaped the world, the way we see it, and the way we live our lives on it.
Most historians accept the notion that the first metals discovered and used by humans were iron, tin, and gold. While gold turned out to be much too soft for anything other than decoration (as exemplified by the Egyptians), Tin and Iron were actively mined and utilized by virtually every civilization. In fact, there is a direct correlation between the rising trajectory of many civilizations and the point they each discovered that various ores could be melted, molded, forged, and fabricated to make the tools that make life easier, such as tools, weapons, and rudimentary machinery.
What made the technological development of civilization even more rapid was the drastically growing number of uses each civilization found for metals, which inevitably led to the industrial revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries, making metal fabrication not just a novelty or a minor aspect of society, but a key aspect driving culture and commerce around the world.
While metal fabricators have incorporated advanced computer controlled machinery as well as tools like robotic lasers and cutting tools, the fact remains that they still do the same thing their ancient metal-fabricating forefathers did. They take raw materials and they make it something new and useful.
From the car you drive or the sink you use to wash your dishes to the beautiful artistic metalwork you might witness in a new, modern building – metal fabrications are everywhere. For a more recent example, consider this: with the oil spills of 2010 spreading across the Gulf of Mexico, metal fabrications were used to try and contain the spills. Or for the physics students out there, many experiments conducted to learn more about “dark matter” take place in large pressure vessels used as vacuum chambers, yet another product of precision metal fabrication.
So as you can see, whether you’re looking at a simple screw or a state of the art airliner – it’s all the result of metal fabrication. Even though the tools have evolved and what once took hours now can take mere seconds, metal fabrication with its rich history has undeniably shaped our world and the way we live in it.