August, 2025- Although Mike Wolf’s family has been in the fabrication business for over 50 years, he only recently purchased a tube laser after “always wanting” one. “It’s made us more effective in terms of processing tube, angle and channel, and it’s enabled us to get jobs that we weren’t efficient at doing before”—parts that had to go through several processes before completion, Wolf says. “Now, we can just laser [cut] it, and the piece is done.” Columbus, Ohio-based Wolf Metals was started in a garage by Mike’s father and uncle in 1974, and it has grown into a 70,000-square-foot operation with multiple lasers, water jet cutting machines, press brakes and full CNC machining centers that can tackle complex fabrication challenges from design and prototyping to production and finishing.
FAST AND FLEXIBLE
Wolf Metals has been working with equipment manufacturer Bystronic, Hoffman Estates, Illinois, for about 12 years, amassing two ByStar Fiber lasers, ByTrans and ByTower laser automation machines, and several Xpert Propress brakes, in addition to the new ByTube Star 130, which has been running for a year. Laser cutting gives the company the flexibility to prototype parts or run small batches, as well as reduce per-part costs on larger production runs.
The ByTube Star 130 4 kW laser from Bystronic features fast, flexible tube laser cutting, with fully automatic setup of all profiles, including open and elliptical tubes, closed tubes, angles, channels and flat bars, which increases operator safety while reducing the risk of human errors. It can process materials from 10 mm to 130 mm.
According to Bystronic, “the ByTube Star 130 tube laser cutting machine eliminates the need for time-consuming drilling, sawing, milling or punching.”
The ByTube Star has enabled us to get jobs that we weren’t efficient at doing before.
The tube also is supported both in loading and unloading to help keep cuts straight and accurate, even with long tubes, and whenever a change of production is required, the operator simply loads material, runs the program and starts the machine.
Wolf says the new machine has “helped us produce items effciently and at a good cost for our customers.” For one recurring large job, Wolf Metals processes thousands of feet of handrail tube with holes for wire.
“Traditionally, we’ve made this part by cutting the tubing and then drilling thousands of holes,” Wolf says. “With the ByTube laser, we just loaded the tube, cut it, placed all the holes in-and we were done. All we had to do was weld it to the base plate.”
Another job required Wolf Metals to run 7,000 aluminum racks for the retail industry. “This was just not effcient with saw cutting,” says Wolf, because an employee had to monitor production. “With the ByTube laser, we still have an employee standing there, but he is putting on an end cap. Before, when we were saw cutting the part, he had to pay so much attention to the saw that he couldn’t do the end cap. That has saved us a ton of time.”
NO JOB TOO SMALL
Wolf notes that the ByTube Star 130 increases effciency not only in repetitive parts but also in small quantities. “Even on our flat lasers, we don’t run like a lot of shops do,” he says. “Most of what we do is transactional, for example, [we will] build 10 of these [parts] or 15 of those. Some jobs may only take us an hour to process.
“It’s easier to complete short runs in the tube laser than it is to drill holes afterward, when there’s a lot of setup involved in drilling,” he continues, pointing out that in small quantities, especially when there’s a right and left part that don’t use the same mill program, it’s much quicker to process it in the laser.
CREATIVE FLOURISH
In November 2024, Wolf Metals used the ByTube laser for a unique project - modifying a 4 X 2 John Deere Gator utility vehicle for Dot The i Creative (DTi), a company that manufactures custom props and banners for collegiate marching bands. Wolf engineered a modular aluminum exoskeleton designed to attach securely to the Gator’s undercarriage without compromising its integrity. The structure is built from 2-in rectangular aluminum tubing with ¼-in. holes drilled along its length, enabling easy mounting of external vehicle structures.
DTi can now build di erent concepts onto the frame, such as a lunar rover or a pirate ship, without making permanent modifications to the vehicle itself.
Having Bystronic equipment already on the floor when the ByTube laser was installed allowed operators “a big step up” in the learning curve. “It does require some other training,” says Wolf. “It’s not a flat laser, so there were some things to learn on the programming side. It was very helpful being familiar with Bystronic equipment, and when we have needed service on it, they are on it. It’s really been a phenomenal machine. It’s doing exactly what we wanted it to do.”
Bystronic Inc., 800/247-3332, http://bystronic.com/
Wolf Metals, 614/461-6361, http://wolfmetals.com/
