Farmer's Copper

Farmer's Copper Ltd. is a family-owned metal service center that stocks copper and copper alloys alongside aluminum, stainless steel, carbon steel and iron, and cuts and machines those materials to customer specification. The company states it carries more than 30 alloys of copper alongside a diversified inventory of other metals, held in a 275,000 square foot warehouse. Material is supplied in mill shapes such as plate and sheet, or processed into finished and semi-finished parts.

The business was started in 1920 by Les Farmer Sr., a coppersmith, and his brother Sidney Farmer Sr., who had come to the United States from England, and it has passed through four generations of the family. Farmers Copper describes itself as one of the oldest family-owned and operated metal service centers in the United States, and uses the name "The Metal Specialists". The service center is ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D certified.

Alloys stocked

• Copper: OFHC and OFE (C10100, C10200), ETP (C11000), DHP (C12200), tellurium (C14500), beryllium (C17200, C17300, C17510) and chromium (C18200)
• Brass: red, cartridge and yellow, Muntz metal, low and high leaded, free-machining, admiralty, naval and Green Dot
• Bronze: commercial, phosphor, aluminum, nickel aluminum, aluminum silicon, silicon, manganese, eco, bismuth tin, tin, leaded tin bearing bronze and Toughmet nickel bronze
• Copper nickel: C70600 (90/10), C71500 (70/30) and C72900 Toughmet copper nickel tin
• Aluminum: 3003-H14, 5052-H32 and 6061
• Stainless steel: 303, 304 and 304L, 316 and 316L, and 17-4
• Iron: cast iron class 40, and ductile iron in 65-45-12 and 80-55-06

Cutting and processing

Cutting runs on horizontal band saws, vertical bar saws, sheet and plate shears, abrasive waterjets, precision plate saws, CNC routers and a plasma burner. Four abrasive waterjet machines produce finished and semi-finished parts in carbon steel, stainless steel, copper alloys and aluminum, a method the company notes leaves no heat affected zone, no warpage and no metallurgical change.

Waterjet tolerances are given as close as plus or minus 0.010 inch on the larger machines and plus or minus 0.005 inch on the nonferrous machine, depending on part size and thickness. Punched parts hold plus or minus 0.010 inch, with bends at plus or minus 0.030 inch. Circle saws also cut rings up to 10.5 inch inside diameter.

Fabrication and finishing

Two CNC routers handle high-speed gantry routing of non-ferrous sheet and plate in copper, brass and aluminum, and also cut wood, phenolic, Kevlar and other plastics. The company is a UL recognized fabricator of GP03, a fiberglass insulation board used in electrical switchgear, and cuts parts for that industry.

Two bus bar benders form and bend bar up to 5/8 inch thick, with drilling and tin or silver plating to bus bar specification. Two deburring machines remove sharp edges, and computerized engraving marks part numbers and heat numbers for traceability.