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Why Young People Should Join the Trades: Building Real Skills, Real Things, and a Real Future
Every fitting tells a story.
This photo might look like a stack of shiny metal boxes to some, but to us, it's a week of progress, planning, and precision. Each piece sitting on this pallet—offsets, reducers, elbows, takeoffs—is the result of a design process that begins with tape measures in tight basements, field notes scribbled on scrap paper, and digital cut files run through our plasma table.
Here’s what you’re looking at:
A mix of custom transitions, each fabricated to fit unique site conditions
A couple of rectangular elbows, carefully bent to maintain airflow and minimize pressure loss
A set of square-to-round reducers, which help marry mismatched systems
Stacks of unformed blanks, labeled and ready to bend, notch, and hem
All this galvanized sheet metal will be installed in real homes and buildings within days—maybe even hours. It will hide behind drywall, above ceilings, and inside mechanical rooms. And though you may never see it again, your comfort will rely on its craftsmanship for years to come.
Why It Matters
Most homeowners never think about their ductwork until something goes wrong. But behind every well-ventilated space is a network of sheet metal fittings fabricated by hand and eye—cut to spec, sealed tight, and installed by a crew that knows airflow is as much art as science.
These aren’t generic pieces pulled off a shelf. Every job has quirks—maybe the furnace sits low, or the joists don’t line up, or the return drop has to squeeze past plumbing. That’s where skilled fabrication makes all the difference.
From Shop Floor to Air Flow
This pallet is ready for delivery, and the team who built it will probably never see the finished job. That’s just how it goes in this line of work. But we take pride in knowing that when someone turns up the thermostat or gets a blast of cool air in a second-story bedroom, this pile of metal helped make it happen.
So here’s to the overlooked, the hidden, the hard to reach. Here’s to ductwork that fits like a glove.
A Trade Worth Learning
If you’re a young person out there wondering what to do with your hands, your head, and your future—look again at that photo.
Those fittings didn’t come from a factory overseas. They were made right here, by people who know how to read a job, cut a pattern, fire up a plasma table, and build something real. There’s value in that. There’s pride in that. And there’s opportunity in it, too.
The trades are full of aging experts and open jobs. The work is steady, the pay is solid, and the impact is immediate. You don’t need a mountain of student debt to get started—you need curiosity, grit, and the willingness to learn.
We need more hands on deck. If you like working with tools, solving puzzles, and doing work that actually matters, this is a career path worth walking. And we’re always looking for people ready to take that first step.
Want to see more behind the scenes?
We’re planning a photo series showing how fittings go from CAD file to cut sheet to installed product. Follow along on the blog or sign up for our newsletter to get updates.
📸 Photo taken in our shop last week. Every job is different, and every fitting gets made with care.
🔧 If you’re a homeowner planning a retrofit or a contractor needing fast turnarounds, reach out. We build to fit, not force.
Sheet Metal Cutting Tools: Straight and Bulldog Tin Snips
Why are my cuts coming out so jagged!? Why don't these snips cut a radius well? Why do all of my long cuts A.) Take so long and B.) Have all these little notches every inch or so?
You may or may not have asked yourself these questions or many others while hacking through a piece of tin.
I've had all these frustrations over the course of my career and some of those issues come down to experience cutting with any kind of tin snip by hand. However, another answer could be that you may be using the wrong snips for the job. One size does not fit all when it comes to sheet metal cutting tools.
The one tool that I would have gold plated and mounted on the wall of my office is a pair of Straight Tin Snips. They are on the front of our company T-Shirts and will forever be a building block of any micro tin shop.
Straight Tin Snips I use daily
Known as Lather Snips to some, I have always labeled them as straight cut tin snips or shears. I have spent over 15 years of my working life cutting straight duct, plenums and fittings by hand with these and other kinds of tin snips. However, these were by far the Labron James of snips in my Tin Knockers tool bag and on the sheet metal fabrication table.
The manufacturer will tell you wide curves can also be cut, and to a point, you can with the Straight Cut. However, I would argue that the longer handle Bulldog Pattern Snips provide an easier cut when dealing with radius shearing. The Bulldogs are for "nibbling" heavier gauge and they do a great job in that forum. But they do a much better job than the straight cut snips when you have to cut a 40" flat elbow cheek and especially when cutting smaller radius lines by hand. Bulldogs saved me a lot of frustration on those days when fittings prioirized the schedule.
Bulldog Tin Snips We Use Each Day
The straight cut snips hang up too much as you make your way through the radius. They can't make the corner nice, especially on those tighter curves. Think of a good handling car versus a bad one. Both vehicles can make the turn. However, you can feel the difference if you've driven the car that really handles well in the corner. It can make all the difference when time is of the essence.
Having both pairs of snips at your disposal can only help your fabrication prowess.
Every sheet metal worker, roofer or HVAC technician will have a pair of Straight Tin Shears at the ready. They are tried and true; the backbone of a Tin Knockers tool bag. I would bet many of them carry a pair of Bulldogs as well.
Today at K & E Sheet Metal they have taken a back seat to the CNC plasma table and pneumatic jump shear, but they still hold tremendous value in our shop on a daily basis. They were the tools that built this company to where we could afford the plasma table and jump shear.
If you're working in the field and you don't have a pair in your tool bag, do yourself a favor. And if your're starting a small fabrication shop, they are a must. Those aviator snips you may have picked up at the local Home Depot are immensely important when it comes to sheet metal cutting tools, but they will soak up your time and forearm strength in seconds.
The Straight Cut Tin Snips and Bulldog Pattern Snips will help take care of that problem and keep your cuts straight and true.
Happy Cutting!
SaraSpa Rod & Gun Club Duct Installation Photos
Here are a couple pics from our most recent duct installation at the SaraSpa Rod and Gun Club in Greenfield Center, NY.
Installation of the Exit Air Unit ductwork and filter cabinet.
Installation of Make-up Air Unit duct.
The job has been progressing nicely with a lot of custom duct and fittings. Each section is fabricated with 24 gauge metal and secured together with the Ductmate Flanging System.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel regarding finishing up the installtion and fabrication. I hope to get all the photos gathered together and share them after the project is completed. With our move to a new fabrication shop space and other jobs, time has been at a premium. We are finally getting back to a somewhat normal schedule.
Understanding The Role of an HVAC Ductwork Fabricator
Have you ever heard of the term 'tin knocker'? There's a good chance you have come across the term somewhere along the line. Although, there's also a really good chance you have no idea what I'm talking about.
So what is a tin knocker anyway?
Have you ever heard of the term 'tin knocker'? There's a good chance you have come across the term somewhere along the line. Although, there's also a really good chance you have no idea what I'm talking about.
So what is a tin knocker anyway?
Although there is no real dictionary definition of the term, the accepted definition of a tin knocker is some one works with HVAC ductwork, a sheet metal worker. Meaning someone who fabricates duct and duct fittings for residential or commercial dwellings. Tin knocker can also be assigned to someone who installs ductwork on a regular basis. However, the term 'duct installer' is more common for the men and women working that job.
My daily job, along with co-owner duties, here at K & E Sheet Metal is HVAC ductwork fabricator or tin knocker. I fabricate the components used for the duct running through your home so heat and air conditioning can get to each of the rooms.
Our main business
Our main business is fabricating the plenums, duct, elbows and transitions needed to run the trunk line (ductwork) in the basement or attic. Many times the installer will need to run the duct under existing plumbing pipes or around a corner. Whether the piece needed is a standard fitting or a custom section, contractors or customers will call with measurements for what they need to finish the job. I, as an HVAC ductwork fabricator, build the duct to keep the job moving along.
Method to the madness
Well, in our shop it's a much simpler process than that of the larger, unionized shops knocking out ductwork for major projects around the world. Our facility takes an order from the customer--no job being too small--where I will either enter the dimensions in our computer system running the CNC plasma machine or start the cutting process by hand. Either with had tools or with our 52" wide shear, which is used to cut larger sections of duct.
After the pieces are cut, I will use our 8' sheet metal brake and other metal bending tools to form the duct fittings and custom sections one flat side at a time. Our ductwork is formed either in half sections or four different sides to create the square or box that will be the duct. This also gives me the chance to run each side through whichever roll forming machine is needed to create the joints necessary for assembling each component.
The assembly process is performed either with a hand held or air hammer, with the air hammer being the quickest form of assembly at our shop. Depending on size or type of fabrication, each piece can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes.
Obviously. this is a very quick overview of what I do as an HVAC ductwork fabricator, but you can get a sense of the basic steps needed and where our services are very important to the installation process. In order to keep the air flow and efficiency at peak you need to have the proper sized duct and fittings to move the air. Therefore a good fabricator is a must for anyone who runs an HVAC installation company.
Keep the line moving sir
You can equate what I do to a short order cook, who needs to have something done quickly and accurately to keep the line moving. When an order is called in, the time window for me to finish is tight, roughly within 24 hours. With many orders coming through the door, this leaves hours to minutes for getting the fabrication complete, depending on the size of the order. All lead times aren't always a rush, some are weeks or even months down the line. Nevertheless, the majority of what we do in the residential market is a very quick turn around because time frames for many of the homes going up these days is fast.
Other factors that will determine what an HVAC ductwork fabricator produces on a daily basis is the size of his shop, amount of equipment, technological advancement of that equipment and number of employees fabricating ductwork.
The role of the duct fabricator hasn't changed much over the years, but the size of the shops have. There aren't many job shops like ours around these days giving homeowners and smaller companies the ability to get small orders fabricated on demand for a good price.
If anything, understand that an HVAC ductwork fabricator is an integral part of the construction of your home or commercial building.
Old School Custom Trunk Duct Fabrication
Currently I am fabricating some custom transitions to marry a new heat pump system to this existing trunk duct. The customer emailed these this morning to give me an overview of what I would be hooking the new duct transitions up to. Always helpful when a customer is willing to take the time and snap a few shots of what the job looks like.
The ductwork in this house is absolutely fantastic! Yes, it's old and may be sagging in some area's after hanging for years and years. All of this is normal. Should it be changed? Maybe, but all in all it looks ok.
I have only come across a few jobs with duct where this much time and effort was placed into the fabrication and installation. The time needed is easily double, maybe even triple of what lead times would be today. Plus, the man hours into laying out the duct needed to complete the job.
The cool part is the way the duct line is laid out and how each heat run is a rectangular or square branch with multiple rounded offsets and risers. Today, all of these heat runs would be round and branching off the top of the main trunk line. And the fabrication time would be minimal because much of what you see would be standard, stock sizes that can be purchased at your local Home Depot.
However, the time and effort in the fabrication, with rounded inner throats is completely custom and just fabulous. My father and I completely appreciate the craftsmanship that went into this amount of bespoke trunk duct and fittings. Very cool.
Custom Duct Transitions For AC Coil
Installing a new AC coil
There are times when installing a new AC coil to existing duct work can be simple and times when the task can be difficult. Usually you can get the proper cased AC coil for the furnace you are installing and either easily transition the duct to the existing duct line or you can have a custom plenum made fitting the coil to the furnace.
Then there are times when you need to transition from your furnace to the size of the uncased AC coil and then back again to the custom size of your existing duct work. When this happens your first call should be to us, K & E Sheet Metal, because this is exactly why we exist. Custom plenums and transitions are our specialty :)
Installing a new AC coil
There are times when installing a new AC coil to existing duct work can be simple and times when the task can be difficult. Usually you can get the proper cased AC coil for the furnace you are installing and either easily transition the duct to the existing duct line or you can have a custom plenum made fitting the coil to the furnace.
Then there are times when you need to transition from your furnace to the size of the uncased AC coil and then back again to the custom size of your existing duct work. When this happens your first call should be to us, K & E Sheet Metal, because this is exactly why we exist. Custom plenums and transitions are our specialty :)
Taking measurements
Today we received an order for a plenum with transitions needing to get from one measurement, to another and then back to yet another. Below is a crude drawing of the sizes needing to be transitioned.
In order to make the transitions and fit the AC coil, I will need to fabricate two transitions and a straight plenum, placed in the center, that will house the coil and have a door for servicing. The transitions can be entered into the computer system and cut with our new CNC plasma machine, while the straight box I will cut with tin snips.
Looking down inside the AC coil plenum at the shelf that will hold the coil
The fabrication
The bottom transition, 13 1/4 x 18 up to 17 1/4 x 19 3/4 will have a 1/2" flange on the new furnace side and S-lock on the top side that will accept the straight plenum box. Inside the plenum box will be a 24 gauge metal shelf (Picture to the right) to hold the AC coil inside the 17 1/4 x 19 3/4 box.
From the top of the AC coil box I will transition to the existing duct inside the customer's home. Basically, the old duct work leftover after tearing out the old furnace.
All being said the fabrication for this order sounds much harder than it actually is. Many times the hardest thing is translating what the customer is thinking into how my brain processes things. Once this hurdle is completed the process goes rather quick and easy. This particular order foe example ended up being two simple custom transitions with a straight AC coil box sandwiched in between.
Below is a photo of the finished plenum ready to be picked up and installed
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New YouTube Video: Cold Air Boot Cutting Process
Our newest YouTube video showing the cutting process of our custom cold air boots. Our new CNC plasma machine has sliced our cut times in half helping to quicken the assembly process here in the fabrication shop.