Manufacturing

Sheet metal fabrication at scale - Mercury Metal

At Mercury Metal I worked as an Electrical/Mechanical Design Engineer focused on optimizing and scaling sheet metal manufacturing processes. This meant working directly with the production floor - press brake operators, plasma table programs, and CNC turret punch setups - and designing parts that hit tight tolerances while being producible at volume without rework. I developed an understanding of how bend sequences, tooling selection, and material springback interact, and how to write flat patterns that produce accurate finished geometry.

I also integrated electrical and control system components into custom fabricated enclosures and assemblies, which required close collaboration between the mechanical design and electrical routing - a skill that directly carries into my PCB and electronics work.

CNC machining - Ariel Nomad EV conversion

On the Ariel Nomad project I was the sole engineer, which meant I programmed and ran all CNC machining myself. This included structural brackets for integrating the 800VDC battery system and drivetrain into the Nomad chassis, and decorative battery faceplates with fine surface finish requirements. Programming CNC paths for parts that had already been modeled in SolidWorks kept the CAD-to-manufacturing loop tight - a change in the model went directly to updated toolpaths.

Working both sides of the CAD-to-machining interface - designing the part and then cutting it - forces a level of manufacturability awareness that improves design decisions upstream. I think about fixturing, tooling access, and datum placement while the part is still a sketch.

3D printing and rapid prototyping

I use FDM printing heavily for prototyping mechanical interfaces, brackets, and enclosures before committing to machined or fabricated parts. For functional end-use parts requiring better surface finish or material properties I use SLS (nylon) or SLA. Understanding the mechanical and dimensional limits of each process - layer adhesion, warping, support removal, tolerancing - shapes which process I reach for and how I design for it.

Design for manufacturability

Across all of these processes, the underlying skill is DFM: designing parts that are manufacturable, not just geometrically correct. This means specifying tolerances that are tight enough to function but achievable with the available process, avoiding features that require special tooling unless necessary, and sequencing operations so that each step doesn't undo the precision of the previous one. My hands-on manufacturing experience is the foundation of that judgment.

Projects where this skill was applied