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Laser welding is a superior technology for repairing defects in tooling, plastic injection molds, stamping dies, blow molds, turbine blades, and nearly any tooling component made of stainless steel, aluminum, copper alloy, cast iron, and all tool steels.

When Meyer and Ida Cohen founded Meyda Tiffany Co. in the early 1970s based on a family hobby of making stained glass windows, it’s doubtful that they ever thought it would evolve into the leading U.S. manufacturer of custom and decorative lighting.

Implementing a comprehensive laser cutting system is not a task for the faint of heart. In addition to the financial outlay, requirements include planning for a complete system, not just the laser, according to Dustin Diehl, laser division product manager, Amada America Inc., Buena Park, Calif.

With great power comes great responsibility, the saying goes. And with greater laser power being used to weld sheet metal, tubes, copper and aluminum, operators have a greater responsibility to deliver that power with a precision that avoids defects.

Materials science has opened new possibilities for designers of cars, planes and other products. Metal alloys are now as precisely engineered as they are machined. The result is longer lasting, stronger parts. But with a wider selection of materials comes risk—how can you be sure that one piece of gray metal stock is different than another? Careful warehousing procedures and paperwork only go so far.

Sometimes, too many choices can be a problem. That might be the case today for manufacturers of medical devices, who are facing a host of challenges and opportunities. Devices are small and getting smaller. Their complexity is increasing. End users are demanding tighter tolerances.

I’m among the first to dive into the latest manufacturing innovations and see how they can improve our customers’ operations. Yet, I’m also among the first to advise them to pause and ensure that the fundamentals of their manufacturing processes are in place before adding something new into the complex mix of functionality and desired outcomes.

In addition to carbide, ceramics, and cermet, the drive to create the hardest possible cutting tool materials has given us the alphabet soup of PCD, PCBN, CVD-D, and MCD (polycrystalline diamond, polycrystalline cubic boron nitride, chemical vapor deposition diamond, and mono-crystalline diamond, respectively).

Although laser welding is a well-established manufacturing solution, many sheetmetal fabricators have been hesitant to implement the process at their shop.

As both robots and lasers improve their capabilities, they prove to be even better partners in more applications