Stainless · Aluminium · Mild steel · Sheet metal
SAMS Fabrications was established in 1988 and has built its reputation on reliability, quality and competitiveness. We aim to build long-term relationships with every customer — quality workmanship, on time, at a competitive cost, backed by friendly and efficient service.
1988
Paul picks up the shears
Paul Waterhouse — 28 years old, time-served sheet metal fabricator — founds SAMS Fabrications in a 2,500 sq ft workshop in Bowthorpe, Norwich, with his wife Julie as partner in the business. The name comes from the metals themselves: Stainless, Aluminium, Mild steel, Sheet.
1990s
Building a name
Gun cabinets, skips, electrical enclosures, wheel clamps — whatever needed making in metal. Demand grows and SAMS expands into a second 2,500 sq ft unit next door.
2000
Remembering Julie
Julie Waterhouse — Paul’s wife, and a partner in the business from the very beginning — passed away in 2000 after a nine-year battle with cancer, leaving Paul with four young children. He kept the family and the firm going. Everything SAMS has built since carries her memory with it.
2004
The next generation clocks in
Gary joins straight from school as a workshop apprentice — learning the trade the same way his father did, on the tools. Over the years he works his way up through the workshop to running the company day to day.
2008
The MOD contract — and the first big machine
Winning a Ministry of Defence contract changes the game. The proceeds fund SAMS’ first major machinery investment — a CNC 4-metre press brake — and set the company on the path of investing in technology that it still follows today.
2013
25 years — limited company, and a place of our own
Following record years, SAMS becomes a limited company and — to mark a quarter-century in business — moves into a freehold 10,000 sq ft facility on Whiffler Road, four times the size of where it all began, with room to expand further.
2018
Upgrading the punch
The investment continues — a new LVD Shape multi-tool CNC turret punch arrives, freshly unwrapped on the workshop floor. The same machine you’ll see running in the videos on our homepage today.
Today
Modern machines, same standards
Fibre laser cutting, LVD multi-tool turret punching, CNC press brakes, TIG & MIG welding — continued investment in the latest technology keeps prices competitive and turnaround fast. If you can draw it, we can make it.
“It is a pleasure working alongside my father — I learn something new every day.”
The next generation of Waterhouses
A family-run firm
Three Waterhouses, one workshop
Paul WaterhouseFounder — hands-on since 1988 and still thinking outside the box
Gary WaterhouseDirector — joined as an apprentice in 2004 and worked his way up. Runs the company day to day: sales, purchasing, machine programming, site measures — and still on the tools when needed
Charlie WaterhouseDirector — heads accounts & payroll