FAQs 

We offer standard and custom profiles and tubing in Aluminum, Stainless, Carbon, Brass, Copper, and Nickel Alloys.  We offer various in-house fabrication and finishing options including, but not limited to, anodizing, wet paint, powder coating, hard coat, chrome, polishing, tumbling, and countless other finishing options.  
We also offer a variety of blanket order warehousing and stocking options, and turn-key product manufacturing (from production to finishing, assembly, and packaging shipped right to your location or distribution center).

Along with the overall size and shape of the profile, shipping logistics usually dictates the length of extrusion options. We can provide cut lengths as small as 0.25” and extruded lengths up to 40’.  

In aluminum, we stock and produce extrusions in 1100 Series, 2000 series, 3000 series, 5000 series, 6000 series, and 7000 series alloy.  Check here for a complete list of our available aluminum alloys.

In Stainless we stock and produce extrusions in 300 series, 400 series, and Duplex alloy.  Check here for a complete list of our available stainless steel alloys.

We also offer a variety of alloys in Carbon Steel, Brass, Copper, and Nickel.

From our smallest press size at 110 tons to our largest at 6500 tons and everything in between, we consider no shape too large or too small for the extrusion process.  
On the miniature side we offer wall thicknesses as thin as 0.012”, cross-sectional areas as low as .002”, and tolerances as close as +/-.001”.  These can weigh as little as 0.0005lbs/ft  
Our largest profile press can produce shapes up to a 24-inch-wide circle size, weighing up to a whopping 40 lbs/ft.  

Here at Coltwell, we offer some of the lowest minimum order quantities in the industry.  Minimums will vary depending on your profile and which press it can run on.  We offer minimums as low as 60lbs, standard press size minimums at 500-1,000lbs, and up to 5,000lbs on our largest press. We also offer prototype and sample runs. We consider no job too large or too small.

The most common aluminum extrusion process is porthole. This is when the metal is forced around a shape that matches the hollow section you want to extrude. The die required to produce the profile requires ribs to hold the shape in place, and the metal flows around the ribs. This process separates the metal as it extrudes, so a second die forces those sections back together creating invisible “weld” lines.  

Seamless extrusions are less common and more expensive than porthole extrusions and are known more for their high bursting strength. This process involves what is known as a piercing extrusion and creates a fully extruded hollow tube that does not have any of those invisible “weld” lines along the entire lineal length of the profile. The simplest way to picture this is if you were to take a solid bar and hollow it out to create a tube, that’s what a piercing extrusion (in essence) does.