Vented enclosure body
Milled vent slots and a textured black anodize, with the sealing face masked.
Machined Enclosures & Housings
Enclosure bodies, covers and instrument housings machined from solid or from extrusion — sealing faces, vent slots, cable ports and cosmetic anodized finishes on parts that end up visible in the product.
- Matched body-and-cover sets that seal and fit
- Cosmetic anodize, plating and bead-blast finishes
- Machined from billet or from custom extrusion, whichever suits the volume
An enclosure has two jobs at once
It has to seal, and it has to look right — and those pull in opposite directions. Sealing wants a flat, square, dimensionally tight face. Looking right wants a cosmetic finish, which means anodize or plating, which adds thickness to every surface including the one that has to seal and the threads that have to accept a screw.
So the useful conversation is about which surfaces are functional and which are cosmetic. Tell us where the gasket lands and which faces the customer sees, and we will machine to the finish rather than to the nominal, and mask what shouldn't be coated. Where a body and cover have to fit each other, we machine and finish them as a set for that reason.
Enclosure bodies and covers
Matched sets. The dimension that matters is not on either part on its own — it is the fit between them, after finishing.
Vent and boss detail
Slot edges and a raised sealing boss on the same face.
Enclosure halves
Two halves that meet on a machined face — cut as a matched pair.
Extruded enclosure shells
Machined from custom extrusion, which is cheaper than billet once volume justifies the die. The internal ribs are drawn in by the die; the ends and cut-outs are machined after.
Instrument and sensor housings
Round and prismatic housings carrying bores, ports and mounting features that have to locate a mechanism inside them.
Round instrument housing
Counterbored ports and vent grooves on a curved cosmetic face, held square to the bore axis.
Square tube housing
Windows milled through a thin tube wall without collapsing it.
Sensor housings
Small housings with a raised boss and cable aperture.
Junction box housing
Machined from solid: large central bore plus threaded side ports.
Large turned and milled housings
Parts big enough that the turning and the milling have to be planned together, because neither operation can hold the other's tolerance on its own.
Turned and milled housing
Turned bore and flange, then drilled and milled on the same reference.
Dome housing
Curved shell with machined edge features and mounting tabs.
Gold-finish housing
A cosmetic plated finish over machined internal bearing seats.
What we hold on enclosure work
The figures that matter on an enclosure are mostly about the relationship between two parts, not either one alone.
Body-to-cover fit
Mating sets are machined and finished together, so the fit is established after coating rather than before it.
Sealing faces
Flatness held across the gasket path, and the face masked from anodize where the specification requires bare metal.
Cosmetic finish
Uniform anodize across curved and flat faces, with racking points placed where they will not be seen in the assembly.
Threads after coating
Tapped holes are cut to accept the fastener after the finish is applied, or masked — decided per hole, not per part.
If your enclosure has an IP rating to meet, say so at enquiry: it changes how we treat the sealing face, the fastener holes and the cable entries, and it is far cheaper to design for than to retrofit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you machine a matched body and cover that actually seal?
Yes, and we machine and finish them as a set rather than as two separate line items. The reason is that the critical dimension is the fit between the two parts after coating: anodize adds thickness to both mating faces, so two parts each individually within tolerance can still end up with a gap or an interference. Quoting them as a set costs a little more in handling and removes that failure mode.
How do you stop anodize interfering with sealing faces and threads?
By masking, or by machining to the post-finish dimension — decided feature by feature. Anodizing grows every exposed surface by roughly 5–25 µm, which on a gasket land or a tapped hole is significant. Mark on the drawing which faces must be bare metal and which dimensions are to be met after finishing. If nothing is marked we will ask, because guessing here produces parts that measure correctly and still do not assemble.
Should my enclosure be machined from billet or from extrusion?
It depends on volume and cross-section. Machining from billet has no tooling cost and suits prototypes and low volumes, but you pay for every gram removed. A custom extrusion carries a die cost up front and then produces the cross-section almost free, so it wins once quantities justify it — and it can include internal ribs and channels that would be expensive to mill. Tell us your annual volume and we will cost both routes.
Can you meet an IP rating?
We can machine to a sealing design that supports one, but the rating belongs to the finished assembly, not to a machined part — it depends on the gasket, the fasteners, the cable entries and how it is assembled. Tell us the target rating at enquiry and we will review the sealing face, fastener spacing and entry details against it, and flag anything in the design that will not achieve it.
How do you handle cosmetic surfaces?
By deciding early which faces are visible in the finished product, then protecting them through the process — planning racking points where the marks will be hidden, and handling and packing to avoid the scuffs that happen after machining rather than during it. Mark the cosmetic faces on your drawing. Parts where every surface is treated as cosmetic cost more than parts where the two that matter are identified.
What finishes do you offer on enclosures?
Type II and Type III anodizing in a range of colors, chromate conversion coating, powder coating, plating and bead-blast textures. The parts on this page show black textured anodize, color anodize on extruded shells, and a gold plated cosmetic finish. Our surface finishing pages cover the processes in more detail, including which ones are compatible with which alloys.
Need an enclosure or housing machined?
Send your drawing or STEP file with the material, quantity, which faces are cosmetic, where the seal lands, and any IP rating you need to meet. We will review it and come back with a quotation.
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