Some industrial products are geared towards bringing two things together and making them one, just like a family who joins hands around the dinner table to give thanks are a couple who join hands while strolling down the street. Togetherness is a major theme in human experience, one that is vital for what most people consider a happy life. For industrial processes the joining of one item with another is not quite as romantic, but remains an important piece of manufacturing. Many fasteners, clips, brackets, trim, locks, valves, connectors and gears, which are all parts used to bring two things together like they are one, are produced by way of the same process with the same machine; sheet metal stamping with a stamping press.

Sheet metal stamping not only creates products that connect one thing to another, which means it is a process used in virtually every industrial manufacturing arena, but it can do it quickly. The stamping press has been around for awhile, whether in its mechanical, hydraulic or pneumatic form. It is a powerful and swift machine that gets the cutting and bending of sheet metal done well.

This metal stampings technique obviously involves sheet metal, which can be a variety of different metallic materials such as aluminum, brass, copper, steel, nickel, titanium and tin as well as a plethora of metal alloys. Usually defined as a sheet of thin and malleable metal, there can be different gauges of thickness based on the material and what it will be used for. Regardless of the thickness, the stamping press will have been set to practice the sheet metal stamping with the correct amount of pressure for the material, thanks to CNC machining and fantastic computer design programs. Equipped to create multiple pieces of a single design with uniform precision at high speeds and for a low production cost, it is no wonder sheet metal stamping is used to create such popular “joining” pieces.