Tooling
Press work tools are necessary when manufacturing custom-made components. By using specialist CAD/CAM software, the correct tool can be specifically designed to produce any component.
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Our specialist in-house design team can design and produce any tooling need you require, from manufacturing sample batches through to mass production of over a million parts. We have a dedicated tool production office with the latest CAD/CAM software.
When just a small batch of components are needed, for example as a ‘prototype sample’ it’s possible to manufacture these without needing any tooling. Wire-eroding can produce the flat blank prior to forming with standard tooling utilised to form the parts to the required dimensions. It’s a time-consuming process but it allows us to produce parts for testing without customers having to invest in production tooling. When small to medium production volumes of components are required, they can be blanked out on tooling and formed in subsequent operations on separate equipment. The cost of tooling is relatively small and will increase the production time in comparison to the previous process. In cases of medium to high volume production, the flat strip component is manufactured complete on a single piece of equipment. This can be achieved through the use of progression tooling. The developed components are not completely blanked out when producing them on progression and multi-side tooling. A small section of material is left to carry the part into the subsequent forming stage. When using progression tools, the material is indexed forward to each forming stage. As it progresses through the tool, the component experiences a sequence of forming operations until it’s fully formed. The last stage cuts out the section of material that has carried the component forward. Although these tools are complicated to design, they will produce finished parts at very high speeds resulting in very low unit prices. CAD technology can allow us to design tooling for strip components precisely and in a cost-effective manner. We can design and manufacture components in our specialist tool production office. Using the latest CAD design tool design technology which also links to our EDM and machining centre. Every single component is designed and manufactured individually and large orders can be manufactured on our high-speed power presses. When you need specialist components manufactured in batches of up to 10,000, we can use our power press machines and then finish the components by hand. Sample batches can be produced using our existing tooling library and EDM machine. |
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