What is finishing?
Finishing is that last step that makes your parts better than the rest. It also helps bolster the feeling of quality that people get when they see and touch your parts. If you have ever touched a table or an appliance that had a sharp edge you know first hand. After the cutting, bending and welding you take that last step and that is finishing.
Finishing can be as simple as removing the bur from laser cut parts to mirror polishing the final product. In some cases the finish is key to the final product and it some its a value add. If you are making range hoods, elevator doors or even appliances the grain finish is very often a requirement. That grain can be sharp and coarse to the hand or a smooth fine grain that feels good to the touch.
You can control the perception of the final part by paying attention to that final step. A door pull with a fine finish feels better in the hand and has an air of quality. To make your part stand out and command a higher price and related demand finishing could be key. As you seek ways to improve the profit in products do not over look the finishing aspect. Same goes when you are looking to make an item stand out.
There are simple machines to just remove a bur and soften the edges. These tend to be brush setups that are not super aggressive and the better machines can even handle smaller parts. These are good for when you are producing sheet metal products or components for others. It leaves you with a part that is not sharp and is ready for coating application. These parts will weld easier and will not need hand grinding in preparation for that weld.
There are larger machines that produce a soft grain finish on the larger parts. If you are making medical of food items these machines can be vital. A soft grain that can be sanitized while not being sharp is often a hard requirement. A combination of sanding belts and drum style brush units work the very best for this task. Beware of just using sanding belts, the side effect of a sanding belt is that it produces a sharp edge. Scotch brite belts are also not a great option as they are far too costly and do not hold up. A good setup would be a sanding drum and some drum brush units and it would make that soft grain easy as pie.
What if you we making something like a soap dispenser for a commercial bathroom or kitchen? You likely need to remove a weld and apply a finish to a part thats not flat. One option would be to use a robot. You can load 10, 20 or 30 parts at a time and the robot would pick each one up and do the finish work. A backstand to grind welds and blend the finish with some brush back stands to blend out the whole part if needed. Here you would get the final result you need while cutting labor and time per part. It is a combination of tasks just automated. Even if you are working with machined parts this same concept could be applied and be very effective.
Finishing is often where a lot of utility and even beauty get imparted to an item. You spend a lot to get the final product, dont let a sharp edge or lack of finishing drag it down. Look at that last step as where a great part gets pushed across the goal line.