Fred Simonson

Typical fabricating job shops and OEMs make parts using traditional fabrication methods, such as turret punching, laser cutting, and press brake bending. But for the production of some flat sheet metal parts, the most efficient method is stamping using hard tooling.

The process of stamping parts from the initial request for quote (RFQ), through the tooling design/build process, and finally, to the stamping production can be a long and winding road with a large gap between what is designed and what can be manufactured. Knowing a feature’s function during the tool tryout process—or better yet at the time of RFQ—can help a tooling house wring out cost and smooth an operation. Which costly features and dimensional criteria may be unnecessarily complex or overdimensioned?