ALUMINIUM FLAT BARS FOR FABRICATION & SUPPORT

An aluminium flat bar is the simplest profile we extrude: a solid rectangle, a width, a thickness, nothing else. That simplicity is exactly why it moves in volume. Flat bar is the profile fabricators keep in the rack for the jobs that have not been invented yet, the shim, the strap, the bracket blank, the trim line. We extrude flat bars at our facility in Indonesia in 6063 and 6061, in standard sections and cut to your list.

What a Flat Bar Is

The cross-section is a solid rectangle, specified as width × thickness. A 50 × 5 mm flat bar is 50 mm wide and 5 mm thick, supplied in 6 m lengths as standard. No hollow core, no flanges, no surprises.

Because the section is solid, a flat bar takes drilling, tapping, countersinking, and bending without the wall-collapse concerns that hollow profiles bring. It is the raw material of small fabrication.

Flat Bar, Flat Stock, or Rectangular Bar?

Another rare point of international agreement: the UK, Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States all call this profile a flat bar. Only the metal's spelling changes, aluminium in British English markets, aluminum in the US.

Two sibling terms are worth knowing. Flat stock is common in American workshops for the same product. Rectangular bar usually signals a thicker section, where the proportions approach square. All three names land on the same extrusion, and we quote against any of them.

Extruded Bar Is Not Sheared Strip

Here is the distinction that matters more than any naming question. A flat bar can be made two ways: extruded as a finished profile, or sheared in strips from aluminium sheet. They are not the same product.

A sheared strip carries the guillotine's signature on both long edges: a slight burr, a rolled corner, and edge stresses from the cut. An extruded flat bar's edges are finished faces, square and clean, formed by the die rather than a blade. For hidden packing pieces, sheared strip is fine and sometimes cheaper. For visible trim, anodised work, or any edge a hand will touch, extruded bar is the correct call, and our position is that the price difference rarely survives a comparison once deburring labour is counted.

Where Flat Bars Get Used

• Trim and cover strips over joints, panel edges, and junctions, especially anodised.
• Spacing and packing, as shims and packers where a precise, consistent thickness matters.
• Bracket and fitting blanks, drilled and bent in the workshop into whatever the job needs.
• General fabrication: stiffeners, wear strips, straps, and backing bars across joinery, signage, and light engineering.

Specifications

Sections outside this table can be quoted from our die library or tooled as a custom die, including bars with radiused edges or off-standard proportions.

One Tip on Alloy, One on Orientation

Alloy first: 6063-T5 for trim and anything on show, 6061-T6 where the bar works as a structural strap or bracket, since its yield strength sits near 240 MPa against 6063's 145 MPa.

Orientation second: a flat bar is weak laid flat and surprisingly capable on edge. Bending stiffness follows the cube of depth, so a 50 × 5 mm bar standing on its 5 mm edge resists bending roughly a hundred times better than the same bar lying flat. If a flat bar is sagging in your design, the fix is usually free: turn it.

Cut-to-Size Flat Bars from Indonesia

Flat bar orders are where our cutting service earns its keep. Send a cutting list and the bars arrive at finished length, square-ended and deburred, with no offcut pile at your end. Non-standard sections come from the die library, and fully custom profiles from a new die against your drawing.

Send the list, the drawing, or just the duty, and our team will reply with an alloy recommendation, price, and lead time from our factory and warehouse in Indonesia. Solid round and square sections live on our Round Bar page if the job calls for a different shape of the same idea.