Jigs and fixtures are not the same thing, and they do not have the same working life. Which tooling is stored with the part number and which is remade for every job.
A sample mould answers whether a shape works; a production mould answers whether it can be made the same way again. How a fabrication shop chooses the tooling route for custom metalwork.
Springback opens a bend and work hardening stiffens the metal, so a tube rarely leaves the bender where the drawing put it. How shops compensate and why matched runs demand more care.
Titanium, stainless and aluminium expand and corrode differently, so the joints between them decide the result. How mixed-material assemblies are welded, isolated and sequenced on the bench.
Stainless fails at predictable places: condensate inside the tube, chloride pitting outside, crevices behind clamps, oxidised weld roots and mixed-metal fixings. How to design against them.
Wall thickness drives weight, sound, bendability and weld tolerance at the same time. A section-by-section look at what thin wall and thick wall each buy on a fabricated exhaust system.
Brushed, polished and satin surfaces age in different ways in real service. How each finish is produced, where titanium colouring fits in, and how weld dressing decides whether a finish survives.
Sheet, tube, plate and billet each impose their own cutting, forming and welding route. Why the starting form of titanium decides tooling, scrap and how a custom part is actually built.
