Precise construction for jobs of all sizes
- Our fully-equipped workshop and highly skilled safety conscious tradesmen can fabricate just about anything, from small items including brackets through to large items for commercial, industrial or public applications including stairs, balustrades, handrails, industrial walkways, culvert covers, car park kick rails and trolley bays.
- Whether it is steel, stainless steel, marine grade stainless steel or aluminium, our focus on quality materials and impeccable workmanship ensures the end result meets all required standards.
- Our expertise also includes specialist tasks including fabricating steel boat trailers to RMS roadworthiness standards, surf boat rollicks, strongman equipment and converting shipping containers into testing labs, stables, site offices or sheds.
- The fully equipped workshop can provide services including drilling, pressing, bending and all complex or fine detail metal fabrication.
- The workmanship we deliver can meet the most exacting standards, including food hygiene, industrial safety and Roads and Maritime Services infrastructure standards.
- We only use Australian-made metals that carry full quality assurance and standards compliance certification.
Everything You Need To Know About Steel
Here at Arc Attack Fabrication, we understand the importance of steel in Coffs Harbour, having been fabricating and supplying the metal for years. For us, its uses in construction and architecture are integral, but we know many of our customers don’t even understand the basics behind steel.
Here we offer you some general steel information:
What is Steel?
Steel is known as an alloy – a metal created by combining two or more metallic elements. Alloys are known for their strength and resistance, and steel is not exempt from this. Specifically, steel is an alloy of carbon and iron but only contains less than 2% carbon. It also contains 1% manganese alongside small even smaller percentages of oxygen, sulphur, silicon and phosphorous.
How is it made?
There are two main ways to produce steel:
• Blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF)
• Electric arc furnace (EAF)
In general, BF-BOF consumes recycled steel, coal, and iron ore, whereas EAF only uses electricity and recycled steel. Most steel (70.7%) is produced using the BF-BOF route, which results in bars, sections, or plates of steel. However, the EAF method is needed to meet the demand for steel.
A third production method – the open-hearth furnace (OHF) is how approximately 0.4% of steel is produced. This low percentage is mainly due to its intensive energy requirements which result in significant economic and environmental advantages.
Is there more than one type of steel?
Amazingly, there are actually over 3,500 various grades of steel. These all differ in their environmental, chemical, and physical properties. Different types of steels are constantly being developed, with around 75% of modern examples having been created in the past twenty years alone.
Is steel sustainable?
Steel is one of the more environmentally friendly materials, being completely recyclable and requiring fairly small amounts of energy to produce. Those, like us, who work in the steel industry
have spent the last few decades limiting the amount of pollution we emit into the environment, and steel now requires a lot less energy than it used to.
Why is steel important for building projects?
As well as its sustainable properties, steel doesn’t lose any of its strength when it is recycled, meaning that it can always be used in building projects. Steel is strong, stable, and resistant to
mould. Australian weather conditions can be fairly unpredictable, but steel is one of the most reliable materials to withstand any dramatic weather changes.
