Bauer Welding & Metal Fabricators, Inc

About Bauer Welding & Metal Fabricators, Inc

Bauer Welding & Metal Fabricators, now operating as Bauer Tube Fabrication, is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. The company was founded in 1946 by Don Bauer and Hector Gilmer in a small Minneapolis warehouse, where Don designed and built many of the firm’s early tube-bending machines. As demand grew, the operation expanded several times before settling into its long-time Saint Paul facility. Today, the 90-person shop provides precision tube and sheet bending, robotic MIG welding, CNC laser cutting, and precision machining for complex assemblies. The facility houses an in-house tool shop that produces all check and weld fixtures, allowing the team to move projects from prototype through full-scale production under one roof. Capabilities include CNC tube bending, cut-to-length laser cutting, and robotic welding with optical quality control. Bauer serves original equipment manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers in outdoor power equipment, compact construction equipment, power sports and utility vehicles, generators and power systems, material handling, and aftermarket automotive. Customer references include a global recreational vehicle manufacturer, a national backup power generation manufacturer, and a global furniture manufacturer. The company emphasizes bridging the prototype-to-production gap with integrated design-for-manufacturability (DFM) support, rapid quote turnaround, and full PPAP documentation. Its four-step process — quote and DFM, prototype, FAI/PPAP, and scale production — is designed to eliminate handoff delays and ensure first-time fit on the assembly line.

Equipment

• CNC tube bending machines
• Robotic welding cells
• Cut-to-length laser cutting machines
• In-house tool shop for fixture fabrication

Company details

Location

St Paul, Minnesota

Company type

Manufacturer

Employees

90

Founded

1946

Production volume

Prototype to thousands of pieces per month

Lead time

Quote in 3-5 business days; prototype 2-3 weeks; production varies

Listed under

• Laser Cutting in Minnesota
• Welding in Minnesota
• Metal Fabrication & Machining in Minnesota

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