Architectural Flashing Supply
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Fabrication labor and machine time estimating · Lesson 2 of 4

Fabrication labor and machine time estimating: materials, standards and design constraints

The geometry that drives shop work (bends, hems, girth, pieces), AFS's limits and thickness rules, sheet yield, what an hour of wages carries according to BLS, and the OSHA sections that bound the work.

You will be able to: Count bends, hems, girth and pieces from a drawing, apply AFS's size and thickness limits before estimating, work out sheet yield, explain why a wage is not a loaded cost, and recognise the machine-safety standards that bound the work.

10 min · 10 slides · 7 questions

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Slide 1 of 10

Count bends, hems and girth

AFS counts a profile's bends as its legs minus one, counts hems separately at the free ends, and calls a profile complex when it has more than one bend or any hem.

Girth is the flat width of the blank: the legs added up plus the allowance each hem uses.

Always say whether a girth includes hem allowance. AFS's limits register does.

Sources

Glossary

Girth
The flat width of a blank: the legs added up plus the allowance each hem uses. AFS's limits register counts hem allowance in girth, so state which girth you mean.
Hem allowance
The flat material one hem consumes, drawn as 2 x return + gap for an open hem and 2 x return for a smashed one; with AFS's starting values that is 1.125 in open and 1 in smashed.
Complex profile
In AFS's limits register, a profile with more than one bend or any hem. Some thicknesses allow only a single bend and no hems.
Strips per sheet
How many blanks of a given flat width come out of one 48 in wide sheet: 48 divided by the width, rounded down. The leftover width is the drop.
Loaded labor cost
This course's term for the wage plus the employer's other costs of employing someone. BLS splits employer compensation cost into wages and salaries and benefits.