World Lead Chemical Etching

Shims and Spacers

Photofab has a wide experience in the manufacture of shims and spacers, customising to your individual requirements.

We offer prototypes through to full production runs on:

  • Individual Shims and Spacers
  • Packs of shims and / or spacers in various thicknesses
  • Shims / Spacers can be tabbed into a sheet to ease with installation
  • Laminated into adjustable stacks (see Laminations)

Shims are generally placed into an empty space to provide support and / or balance, the chemical etching process offers high precision parts, that have a burr free finish and has low cost tooling.

For bespoke metal shims and / or metal spacers the manufacturing technique of choice is Chemical Milling, let us illustrate this in more detail:

Main Benefits of Chemical Milling

  • High accuracy
  • Industry leading lead times from concept to finished components
  • Customised parts – you design it – we make it! (Guidelines available)
  • Complete manufacture, blank, form, heat treatment and plating
  • Cost effective prototypes
  • Nearly 50 years experience in the prototype and development of contacts for the connector industry
  • Burr free & Stress free manufacturing method
  • Prototypes – fast turnaround to meet your needs
  • High volume capabilities
  • Various surface finishes available

Photofab shims and spacers are made from various grades of steel, traditionally mild steel, carbon steel and stainless steel. To find out more about the metals available click here.

To find out more about the Photo Etching Process please either contact us on 01480 226699, or take “The Process Tour”.

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Contacts & Connectors

Encoder Discs and Actuators

Filters, Meshes, Screens & Grids

Gaskets & Seals

Masks and Stencils

Metal Fuel Cell Plates

Metal Laminations

RFI Shielding Products

Shims and Spacers

Formed and Flat Springs

Formed Components

Contacts & Connectors

Photofab have for many years worked closely with connector manufacturers to supply high quality development metal connectors. Photofab can supply formed, heat treated and plated contacts and connectors that will represent the final fully tooled product in very short lead times.

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Encoder Discs and Actuators

Photofab has a wide experience in the manufacture of products for optical applications. All products are custom designed to suit the customers requirements, whether they are driven by motion control, positioning, sensors or measurement.

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Filters, Meshes, Screens & Grids

Photofab has a wide experience in the manufacture of metal filters, meshes, screens and grids. Key requirements include high accuracy, fine apertures, no “breaks” in the bars and no burrs. Due to the bespoke nature of each user’s requirement Photofab offer solutions customized to your individual requirements.

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Gaskets & Seals

Photofab supply high precision custom designed gaskets and seals into the Automotive, Aerospace, Oil and Gas, Medical and Process Industries. High precision gaskets and seals are an ideal product to be manufactured by the Chemical Milling / Photo Etching Process.

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Masks and Stencils

Chemically etched evaporation / deposition masks are the workhorses of the stencil world. They are the most cost effective and offer a fast turnaround.

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Metal Fuel Cell Plates

Photofab can chemically etch bi-polar plates used in Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Fuel cell development has moved forward a long way in the past few years, Photofab work with some of the industries key minds on trialing new designs for separator plates (conductive plates within a fuel cell stack acting as an anode for one fuel cell and …

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Metal Laminations

Photofab supply stacked and bonded metal laminations to high accuracy and consistency. The use of a specialised resist provides both insulating properties within the stack as well as bonding capabilities. The etching process provides a burr free finish, ideal to eliminate problems during winding. The full process is available, including post stacking services such as grinding where required.

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RFI Shielding Products

Photofabrication supply RFI Shielding solutions using various intelligent design techniques. These can be applied to a variety of metals, most popular being Nickel Silver (maintains solderability with no post coating required), or traditionally either a brass or mild steel coated with either tin or nickel plating (depending on your requirements). The full process is available, including forming, plating, soldering and …

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Shims and Spacers

Photofab has a wide experience in the manufacture of shims and spacers, customising to your individual requirements.

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Formed and Flat Springs

World leading manufacturers of springs since 1971 Strip or flat springs come in many different designs, sizes and materials Beryllium Copper, Phosphor Bronze, Carbon Spring Steel and Stainless Steel and are used in many different industries: electronics, military, automotive, aircraft, space, medical, telecoms and shipping. Complex designs from prototype through to production quantities can be produced economically and on short …

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Formed Components

Forming – the bending and shaping of parts. Forming, metal forming, is the metalworking process of fashioning metal parts and objects through mechanical deformation; the workpiece is reshaped without adding or removing material, and its mass remains unchanged.Forming (metalworking) – Wikipedia In addition to manufacturing your parts we are able to offer a variety of forming solutions to suit your …

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If you can draw it, we can make it in thin sheet metal.

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