Metal Stamping Services

Stamping is suitable for mass, complex part production. More specifically, it offers: 

• Complex forms, such as contours
• High volumes (from thousands to millions of parts per year)
• Processes such as fineblanking allow for forming of thick metal sheets.
• Low cost-per-piece prices

Metal stamping’s disadvantages are its setup costs and timelines. Production is quick and inexpensive after tool finalization. Its disadvantages include: 

• Longer lead times on first parts (as time is needed to create dies).
• Tooling, check fixtures, and non-renewable engineering drive upfront costs needed for stamp production lines.
• In order to ensure the product can be reliably produced to specification, suppliers often need to iterate on die design multiple times before production commences.

Xometry offers the following materials for both our standard and custom metal stampings:

• Steel: CRS steel like 1008, 1010, or 1018 is popular; general-purpose material is perfect for cold forming.
• Stainless Steel: such as 301, 304, and 316/316L. 301 stainless steel has excellent tensile strength, while 304 has more significant performance and corrosion resistance at higher temperatures. 316/316L steel features the best corrosion resistance of the three, though it also costs more.
• Copper: including C110, which is a powerful conductor and easily formable.
• Brass: brass 230 (85/15) and 260 (70/30) are highly formable and corrosion-resistant. These brass alloys are also known as red brass and yellow brass, respectively.

Xometry can stamp other sheet metal materials on request, so feel free to contact our experts about the materials you need.

Our stamping materials can be post-processed with bead blasting, powder coating, chem film, anodizing, and plating in gold, silver, or electroless nickel. Learn more about our finishing options on our main sheet metal fabrication page.

We offer single and multistage, progressive die, deep draw, fourslide, and other stamping methods to ensure the most effective method for manufacturing your products. Xometry’s experts can match your project with the appropriate stamping by reviewing your uploaded 3D model and technical drawings. 

• Progressive Die Stamping uses multiple dies and steps to create deeper parts than would typically be achievable through single dies. It also enables multiple geometries per part as they go through various dies. This technique is best suited to high volume and large parts such as those in the automotive industry. Transfer die stamping is a similar process, except progressive die stamping involves a workpiece attached to a metal strip pulled through the entire process. Transfer die stamping removes the workpiece and moves it along a conveyor. 
• Deep Draw Stamping creates stampings with deep cavities, like enclosed rectangles. This process creates rigid pieces since the extreme deformation of the metal compresses its structure into a more crystalline form. Standard draw stamping, which involves shallower dies used to shape the metal, is also commonly utilized. 
• Fourslide Stamping shapes parts from four axes instead of from one direction. This method is used to manufacture small intricate parts including electronics components such as phone battery connectors. Offering more design flexibility, lower production costs, and faster manufacturing times, fourslide stamping is popular in aerospace, medical, automotive, and electronics industries. 
• Hydroforming is an evolution of stamping. Sheets are placed on a die with a bottom shape, while the upper shape is a bladder of oil that fills to high pressure, pressing the metal into the shape of the lower die. Multiple parts can be hydroformed simultaneously. Hydroforming is a quick and accurate technique, though it requires a trim die to cut the parts out of the sheet afterward. 
• Blanking cuts pieces out from the sheet as an initial step before forming. Fineblanking, a variation of blanking, makes precise cuts with smooth edges and a flat surface. 
• Coining is another type of blanking that creates small round workpieces. Since it involves significant force to form a small piece, it hardens the metal and removes burrs and rough edges. 
• Punching is the opposite of blanking; it involves removing material from the workpiece instead of removing material to create a workpiece. 
• Embossing creates a three-dimensional design in the metal, either raised above the surface or through a series of depressions. 
• Bending happens on a single axis and is often used to create profiles in U, V, or L shapes. This technique is accomplished by clamping one side and bending the other over a die or pressing the metal into or against a die. Flanging is bending for tabs or parts of a workpiece instead of the whole part. 

Xometry offers a wide variety of production volumes for sheet metal stamping, including:

Low Volume Production

Low volume production is any amount up to 100,000 units. Most stamping projects are at least 1000 units to ensure cost-effectiveness for the customer. Customers use smaller metal stamping orders to bridge the development of a product between prototypes and mass manufacturing and to see how well a product will do on the market. Low volume production also helps if a buyer is looking for customized products. Xometry offers low per-unit costs, even for small volumes.

Medium Volume Production

Medium volumes of production are between 100,000 and 1 million units. This amount of metal stamping production offers the flexibility of low-volume orders while enabling a lower price per part. It will also offer lower up-front costs for tooling.

High Volume Production

High volume production includes orders of over 1 million parts. While metal stamping is very scalable, it’s an incredibly cost-effective manufacturing process for high volumes, as this drives down unit costs stemming from the price of creating custom tooling.

Short Run Stamping

Short-run stamping is a low-volume production run with limited tool revisions. With short runs, overall costs will be less since you won’t need to change processes or equipment as much. Very short runs will have no changing factors, enabling the lowest price. These production capabilities are best for parts requiring less flexibility, low volume, or entering a new market.

Long Run Stamping

Long-run stamping is a more involved production run in which all factors are variable, allowing for greater flexibility over time as the production line is tuned and optimized for scale. Long-run stamping will incur more costs as each process, material, or machine part may be changed and tested. However, these changes provide consistent quality, low per-unit costs, and incredible throughput of up to hundreds of parts a minute.

Our precision metal stamping services can deliver your part’s desired shape, whether you’re in the aerospace, automotive, telecommunications, or electronics industry. Our suppliers strive to meet your tolerance requirements by iterating on the tool and die design to fine-tune the output to meet your needs. However, the tighter the tolerances, the more challenging and costly this becomes. Precision metal stampings with tight tolerances can be brackets, clips, inserts, connectors, fittings, and other parts in consumer appliances, electrical grids, planes, and automobiles. They’re also used to create implants, surgical instruments, temperature probes, and other medical device parts like housings and pump components.

Regular checks to ensure the output still measures up to specifications are typical for all stamping after each successive run. Quality and consistency are part of a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) program to detect wear in stamping tools (commonly made of D2 steel). Measurements with a check-fixture (or check-gauge) are standard for long-run stamping lines.

We offer metal stamping services that cater to a variety of different industries and applications. Our metal stamping industries include, but aren't limited to: Automotive, Aerospace, and Medical. See more information below:

• Automotive Metal Stamping - Metal stamping can be used to create hundreds of different automotive parts, from the chassis, to the door panels, to the seat belt buckle. See our Automotive Metal Stamping page for more info.
• Aerospace Metal Stamping - Metal stamping is a critical process in the aerospace sector, and can be used to create a wide range of different parts and components for aerospace projects.
• Medical Metal Stamping - Precision metal stamping can be used to create parts and components with quality and tolerances needed in the medical space.