Top 5 in 365—Articles about stamping

Saturn Tool & Die installed a new 2,750-ton, 240- by 96-inch transfer press to make its foray into production stamping in the large-part category for automotive.

The last installment of “Top 5 in 365” showcased the five most-popular articles on thefabricator.com published within the last year about shop management. Previous installments have focused on bending and folding, laser cutting, arc welding, assembly and joining, automation and robotics, consumables, cutting and welding prep, finishing, manufacturing software, materials handling, metals and materials, plasma cutting, safety, and shop management. This post is about the stamping category on the website.

Whether you're using a high-speed stamping press to make simple parts at breakneck speeds or doing something really tricky, like deep drawing a material that puts up a lot of resistance, the information in this technology area is sure to help. The articles, case studies, and press releases cover stamping presses, lubricants, and materials. Here are the top five articles about stamping published on thefabricator.com in the past year.

5. Statistics and probability for better decisions in manufacturing
It works in baseball; it will work on the shop floor

If you manage the manufacture of high-volume products, you also generate large volumes of data. Buried in that data are pieces of information that can direct you to make better decisions and improve your manufacturing efficiency. The key to reading your data lies in the mathematics of statistics.

If you’re like most people, you don’t remember statistics classes with fondness. Like most students, you probably wondered how calculus, rolling dice, and pulling marbles out of a jar were going to serve you in your career. If you paid attention and still understand the concepts you were taught, you probably know enough to begin using your production data to learn about your operations and improve your performance.

4. High-pressure warm forming forms aerospace-grade titanium
New process allows forming of Ti6Al4V at lower temps

Market data indicates a significant growth of titanium usage in new aircraft. Volumes are expected to grow threefold in a five-year period. A new, faster, and more effective way to form aerospace-grade titanium is needed.

3. Compound tools stamp precise, thin materials in a complex world
Stamping flat, round parts compounded by volume, simplified by tool design

Washers, shims, seals, gaskets, and spacers. Round, flat parts, 6 inches in diameter and smaller. Nothing could be simpler to stamp, right?

But what if 75 percent of your clients are in the aerospace, medical, and industrial segments and have extremely precise requirements for dimensions, concentricity, and flatness to meet stringent industry certifications?

And what if they only need short-run quantities, so your changeovers cannot last longer than 45 minutes and your trial times must be nonexistent?

To complicate matters further, what if you service 25 new clients every month and build 10 new tools and have 50 tool setups and job completions every day?

2. Hot-stamped parts in 2019 vehicles
And the die steel, furnace technologies enabling it

Hot stamping, also called press hardening, is a process used to form very thin, but also very strong metals into automotive parts to reduce weight while also increasing strength and safety. Metals actually transform from one material chemistry to another during the process, producing steel strengths of up to 2,000 megapascal (MPa). By performing the stamping while the steel is nearly molten, the process eliminates springback and allows for the manufacture of complex geometries.

Hot stamping once was a novice technology, used infrequently on very high-strength steels in specialty applications. If ever there were doubt that the process would increase in use, the 2019 auto industry fleet of vehicles should put those doubts to rest. Hot-stamped, high-strength steel components and assemblies are pervasive in nearly all vehicles.

1. Diemaker builds field of dreams with large transfer press system
Now runs rings around competition

Three years ago, with zero booked production business, tool and diemaker, Saturn Tool and Die (Windsor), Inc., bought a brand new 2,750-ton, 240- by 96-inch transfer press. The high-dollar, high-risk investment was an “If you build it, they will come” story if there ever was one. “They” came.

“What happened was after the financial crisis of 2008, and the continued outsourcing of dies to emerging markets like China and Korea, die building just went downhill, and it was really tough to acquire new work,” said Joe Lucente, general manager of the Windsor, Ont., manufacturer. Like most manufacturers in Windsor, Saturn’s primary market is automotive. Its die expertise is in large transfer press work for that market.

“We decided that we needed to diversify and not depend so much on strictly die build, so the peaks and valleys wouldn’t be as severe,” added Barry Copus, operations manager.

Next up? Tube and pipe fabrication.