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If you are looking for an aluminium extruder in the sign industry, look no further! Sign Trade Supplies has a wealth of experience in the aluminium market, and we have extended it to our whole network. Our in-house CAD design & prototype team helps clients bring their ideas to life through the development of bespoke aluminium profiles.
"At Sign Trade Supplies, we thrive on taking our client projects from ideas to reality. When it comes to bespoke aluminium profiles, nothing changes."
We live and breathe aluminium profiles!
With aluminium profiles at the very core of our product offering, we have over 34 years of experience designing, prototyping, developing, and converting aluminium profiles.
Over the many years, we have established long-lasting relationships with aluminium mills to provide a direct line to the very best quality and priced extrusions on the market. And now we are excited to take on our clients' bespoke requirements.
If you decide to partner with us to build your portfolio of bespoke profiles, you will benefit from the following support:
1. In-house design and prototyping
We have a skilled team of CAD engineers who can convert sketches into millimeter-perfect digital drawings. You can expect photorealistic 3D renders to check the form and function of your idea onscreen.
Once the design is approved, we use our state-of-the-art 3D resin printer to create a 1:1 scale model for you to hold and feel. This provides an invaluable tool to truly get an idea of your future extrusion.
2. Bespoke die production
Now that you have seen and held your prototype profile, it's time to create the tooling to bring it to life.
We take the approved technical drawings and work with specialist die manufacturers. This step creates an accurate mold of your very own bespoke extrusion. The mold (aka die) is used by an aluminum mill to force super-heated raw aluminum through a hole into the exact shape of your profile. This process has been used within the aluminum processing industry for over 125 years!
This die is kept safely at the mill, ready to be used time and time again.
3. The extrusion process
With your bespoke die created, a small extrusion run will be processed, allowing for a final check. This step is crucial to confirm the die has been manufactured correctly from the technical drawings.
With the sample approved, we move onto the extrusion process. This is where we are able to extrude as little as 350kg of aluminium billet. The aluminium billet is a solid core of aluminium that is heated and forced through the die using incredible pressure.
The extrusion is pulled out on long rollers, trimmed to size, and stacked ready for finishing.
4. Finishing and Converting
The final stage of the process is to finish and convert the brand new aluminium profile into our customers requirements.
We can provide the whole array of aluminium profile finishing available. Most commonly anodising and powder coating is the popular choice, but we are able to provide the extrusions in special wood grain effect and other patterns thanks to utilising aluminium sublimation techniques.
Once finished we can then convert the long lengths of extrusions by cutting, drilling and punching the dies into the required forms.
