This category contains sites offering directories and sales agencies that represent firms involved in CONTRACT and CUSTOM manufacturing, such as machine shops and foundries.

Please post sites that relate to jobs available in contact fabrication and machining firms.

This category contains sites of companies involved in or primarily focused on the variety of ferrous and nonferrous casting processes. The emphasis is on manufacturing or custom supplying both rough cast and machined end products. Most particularly, this "lead-in" category indexes firms engaged in more than one process or, in a few cases, in casting of a relatively rare nature (e.g. continuous strip and bar casting) or type of end product (e.g. band instrument parts). Otherwise, where a site reflects a concentration on one process (e.g. sand casting) more than others -- or even just that one -- it is more logically allocated to its appropriately named subcategory. Note: The Supplies subcategory is used to gather together the sites of companies that serve the foundry industry with chemicals, consumables, molds, patterns, components, and similar requirements.

This category will list business that produce glass products (NAICS #3272 through 327215) and the companies that support these businesses. The web sites for glass artisans should be submitted to the Arts/Crafts/Glass category. Companies that produce the raw material should be submitted to the Business/Industrial_Goods_and_Services/Materials/Crystal_and_Glass category.

This category will list job shops and contract heat treatment services and equipment for manufacturing parts and processes.

This category is dedicated to sites offering CONTRACT or CUSTOM forging.

The overwhelming majority of Machine Shops concentrate on general machining of metal parts, each serves what is essentially a local market, and, if only as a matter of convenience, seem best indexed in a series of Full_Service subcategories that reflect their individual locations. However, it seems useful to isolate shops that offer a particularly specialized form of machining, and they are therefore indexed under either this main Machine_Shops category or in readily identifiable categories such as Spinning and Stamping. As will be seen, sites allocated to this main Machine_Shops category are those that focus on less common machine processes as, for example, thread rolling and cold heading.

This category covers sites of companies that specialize in -- or have a business focus on -- the production of contoured hollow metal parts and components.

This category contains sites of companies that specialize in -- or have a business focus on -- the production of stamped metal parts and components. It also includes firms that stamp nonmetal materials such as plastics and wood. Note: The majority of stamping shops include tool and die making among their facilities, but this is a supplementary (and, of course, necessary) aspect of their business. They rarely make dies for end users, which is more the province of the Tool & Die Shops that are indexed in a category of their own.

This category and its subcategories cover the wide range of services involved in giving metal and non metal surfaces, products, and components a protective, decorative, or, in some cases, specially required finish. It embraces a variety of plating, coating, polishing, and special purpose processes, the providers of which are indexed under whichever heading can be seen (or at least considered) to best reflect each company's business focus. Note: There are some fine distinctions among the variety of plating, coating, and finishing processes and end results, with companies offering all (or most) of them or limiting themselves to some -- or even a single one -- of them. To best sort out the differences, sites are allocated in one of two ways. On the one hand, a company's obvious emphasis on one type of process (e.g. Anodizing or Chrome or Galvanizing) will put it into an appropriately specific category. On the other hand, a company that runs the gamut of several processes (as, in fact, the greater number of firms do) will place it in either this main category (to reflect involvement in both Plating and Coating, for example) or the main Plating one (in recognition that the capabilities are wide rather than narrow ranging). Additional note: Coating sites more logically belong in the Surface_Treating category, as do, in many case, sites relating to Polishing. The rationale for such allocations rests on a judgement (however arbitrary it may be) that coating processes add a finish with little if any change in the physical properties of the underlying surfaces, whereas plating almost always changes them. In turn, polishing depends to a large degree on a machining (or sometimes a hand) operation and belongs under a Plating heading only if it takes some form of electromechanical or electrochemical deposition or alteration to the surface.

This category contains sites that offer advice, information, and support services to the metal -- and some non metal -- processing industries. On the one hand, it includes details of available publications, exhibitions, and consultancy firms. On the other hand, however, it excludes trade directories and sales agencies, which have a category of their own.

This category contains site of job shops and manufacturers that specialize in fabricating parts out of sheetmetal and do little if anything in the way of drilling or turning to produce their end products. The operations they perform are, on the whole, confined to cutting, bending, stamping, and, quite often, painting or otherwise finishing the material they work with -- even though they do sometimes also produce tubular frames either in addition to or for incorporation into the enclosures they make.

Note: There is a subtle but important difference between sites in this category and those indexed in the Metal Fabricators one. Firms listed there are involved in producing products of a less than usual -- and more than likely advanced and complex -- form that requires something more than general machining. In turn, their end products will differ significantly from anything that can be classified, in relative terms at least, as a flat or shaped sheet.

This category covers a variety of operations required, on the one hand, to prepare metal and nonmetal surfaces and products for subsequent processing and, on the other hand, to give them a final (and usually pleasing) appearance. As such it includes sites related to an assortment of heat treatment processes (such as annealing, brazing, carburizing, and nitriding), various pre- or post- (and essentially mechanical) operations (like deburring, grinding, and polishing), and the application of (wet) painting and (dry) powder coatings as well as certain specialized (and, more than likely, chemically induced) finishes. On the whole, it assumes a quite different kind of application than that involved in plating products to give them a desired finish or significant change in physical properties. Note: Because many plating companies include pre- and post-treatment capabilities in the services they offer, additional sources for surface preparation and finishing can be found among the sites indexed in the Casting,_Molding,_Machining/Plating_and_Metal_Finishing/Plating categoryHowever, the deciding factor in such allocations is the overriding concern with plating rather than a focus on what those companies are given to calling "value added services."

This category contains sites which provide all types of welding services (MIG, TIG, stick and flux) for businesses.

This category covers firms that specialize in -- or have a main business focus on -- ironwork, usually of a protective or decorative nature. It also includes shops that produce aluminum structures rather than wrought iron ones. Most tend to serve a localized residential, commercial, and industrial market, and many create imaginative pieces of either their own or an artist's design. With few exceptions, their sites include numerous photos of the work they've done.