Profile Systems versus Welded Steel

To some people the benefits and usefulness of aluminium profiles can be difficult to determine. I know that as a young designer I would encounter information about profiles, however I always saw it as an expensive way to build something that may not look as good as something fabricated using conventional welding techniques.

Thankfully, I finally saw the light and learnt the power of building with aluminium profile systems. The benefits boil down to 3x key areas:

  - Accuracy.

  - Flexibility.

  - Cost.

 Compared to typical cutting, welding and finishing techniques, using aluminium profiles and ‘drilling free’ connections give you enormous improvements in the above areas. To explain a little further:

Accuracy

• With aluminium systems there is no need to consider, design around, or modify fabrication methods to deal with everyone’s favourite art/science ….. welding bow. Whether you’re making a 300mm jig or 8000mm gantry frame you can calculate and be sure of finished dimensions and the accuracy of your frame using R+K’s large range of proven joints.
• The fact that our profile comes clean and pre-anodised, means that the finished profile dimensions before fabrication are what they will be after fabrication. That is, there’s no material loss through descaling, linishing and no surface thickness addition resulting from surface finishing (nor a requirement to consider and accommodate coatings when considering hole/slot ID’s etc).
• Profile dimensional tolerances and member straightness is simply much higher than that found with steel or ‘standard’ aluminium.

Flexibility

• How many times have you had to remake something, or cut, clean and re-weld a joint to make a minor adjustment or tweak to your construction? While this page isn’t meant to be a crow about how R+K is way better than other profile connection systems in the market, we can truly stand by our marketing and guaranteed flexibility by offering the best ‘drilling free’ profile connection system on the market. Our patented clamping techniques DO enable you to make a minor adjustment (or major ones) quickly and easily.
• If you are prototyping things or reconfiguring your arrangement often, the drilling free clamping methods available to you using profile connection systems is limitless. Amazingly versatile and (as I’ll outline below) a wonderful way to save you plenty of money.
• Being able to integrate other key elements of R+K’s range (such as clamps, hinges, linear guiding and actuation devices) is one key differentiator between R+K profile and others. Aside from the standard flexibility discussed above, the world of design options becomes infinite once you start integrating other product ranges.

Cost

• Last but not least - and in case you haven’t considered the cost implications of many of the items already discussed above - we come to the ‘real overall savings’ that you can expect from using profile systems.
• Rather than bang on subjectively, I’d like to ‘show’ you a quick cost comparison.

• Consider that you need to fabricate a simple 1m x 1m x 1m cube frame, let run through the basic method and associated costs:

• Material - Steel:
• Meters required=12m.
• Steel material cost= $146.00 (for 30x30x2mm RHS - from http://www.scottmetals.com.au)
• Steel consumables, incl welding wire and abrasives, approx. $15.00.
• Material total - Steel: $161.00

• Material - Aluminium:
• Meters required=12m.
• Aluminium material cost= $246.00 (for F-30x30 R+K Profile, including cutting and delivery from our standard retail pricing).
• R+K Aluminium Flange Brackets (for corner connections – shown below)= 2x per corner, 16x total, $7.24ea, $115.84 total.

R+K Typical Flange Clamp Connection

• Aluminium consumables, incl lubricating oil for screws. $5.00.
• Material total - Aluminium: $249.00

• Labour - Steel:
• Steel measure, mark and cut 12x members. 30mins.
• Align, jig and clamp corners for top and bottom square frame corners. 15mins/frame, 30mins.
• Lay 1x weld all round to each corner, 8x corners over 2x frames, clean up welds and check measure for squareness. 30mins per frame.
• Now we can weld top square frame to bottom square frame using 4x other members at corners. Align, jig and clamp frames together. 30mins (any less will get a ‘very’ wonky frame).
• Lay 1x weld all round to each corner, 8x corners over 2x frames, clean up welds and check measure for squareness. 30mins. 
• Labour total - Steel: $100.00   (based on AU$40/hr)

• Labour - Aluminium:
• Quality control to measure and check all members correct length and flange bracket components quantities correct. 30min. (Although aluminium cut members actually come labelled with an easy peel off label showing specific part number and cut length).
• Affix Flange Bracket using 1x RK necked screw to two ends of 8x members. 15mins (no tapping, drop of lube on screw only). 15min.
• Insert slot stones into mating locations, 15min.
• Assemble top frame into a square and bottom frame into a square, 15min.
• Assemble top square frame to bottom square frame using 4x other members at corners, 15min.
• NOTE: no clamps, jigs or squaring up equipment required. Angular tolerance and square clamping nature of flange bracket connections ensures good tolerance on squareness. 
• Labour total - Aluminium: $60.00   (based on AU$40/hr)

• Finishing:
• Steel – transport to powdercoater, zinc plater, or spray in own booth. Usually requires pre cleaning, dipping or dressing before coating. Approx coating costs $50-100.
• Aluminium – has come pre-anodised so a wipe down with citrus spray and will do.
• Transport:
• Steel frame needs to be shipped to and from coaters, and for final shipping to customer it will always take up. Approx cost (low estimate) $60.
• Aluminium can be disassembled and packed smaller for shipping, or can be simply assemble at final customer.
• Freight to final customer assumed the same, so not considered for either steel or aluminium above.

          OVERALL PRICE:

• Summing all costs shown above gives the following result:
• 1m x 1m x 1m Steel Frame = $371.00
• 1m x 1m x 1m Aluminium Profile Frame = $309.00
• Overall lead time:
• Purchase and delivery of steel. Cutting and welding, transport and coating ready for delivery to customer. Approx 3 weeks.
• Purchase and delivery of aluminium and flange brackets, ex- Germany (until we hold larger stock her in Australia). 3 weeks.
• Of course if steel is on your shelf, and for that sake aluminium is on your shelf, you could commence fabrication of frames much faster.
• Other factors:
• Aluminium can be assembled by unqualified staff using safer and less expensive equipment, and so further saving to the above could be envisaged.
• Aluminium can be modified, broken down in future, recycled easier, transported easier, and reused on other frames in future.
• Shop drawings may be required, and have not been included above.

My key point that I wish to highlight here is that, while the raw material price of aluminium profile sections may not be on par with other commodity steels on the market, the overall and future life costs are not so disparate.

Yes, as with all things there will be points of conjecture and different views and opinions on how I’ve considered things above…. BUT I hope that the above has highlighted that ‘even if’ aluminium proved to be more expensive in some different designs or applications, it may only be by a minor factor, say not more than 20%. If you are interested in performing a pricing exercise (of which we could also introduce weight and strength comparisons, selecting alternative profile sizes for equivalent mechanical performance) on any of your current or future projects, please contact me to discuss further.

And to finish…….

……I challenge you to find someone that could build for you a 1m x 1m x 1m frame within 3 weeks and $371. I guarantee that I can supply one to you for $309.00.

Kind Regards,

Sascha Humphreys

Phoenix Mecano Australia Pty Ltd shumphreys@phoenix-mecano.com.au www.rk-rose-krieger.com M:     +61 420 980 706 P:     +61 (3) 9338 5699