What is the Difference Between Metal Stamping and Forming?

Those of you who work in manufacturing, production, or engineering are well aware of the importance of metal forming in the production of many commonplace items. Metal forming mainly involves two processes: metal stamping and forming. You should weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each option carefully to determine which is ideal for your project. Let's examine their characteristics and see how they stack up against one another.

Stamping

Thin sheets of metal may be formed into precise forms via stamping. The sheet may be bent, sliced, drawn, or punched into the appropriate form using a sheet metal pressing machine. Since stamping does not need tooling changes between jobs, it is suitable for both low and high-production runs. In general, stamping is a fast and effective process that needs little setup time and minimum maintenance expenditures to accomplish high-volume manufacturing.

Forming

For metals, the process of "forming" is changing their form with no slicing or changing material by using force. A number of techniques, including the extrusion process, powder metallurgy, swirling, forging, pressing, hydroforming, and others, are capable of carrying out this operation with a metal forming machine. Setting up a forming process could take more time than stamping and cost more since tooling has to be changed between production runs, depending on the technique being used. When stamping alone cannot provide the desired level of detail in a form, the process of shaping is typically used. In addition to being much stronger than stamped components, metal forming machine and this process may harden metals while shaping them, which improves their tensile strength attributes compared to stamping alone.

Difference Between Metal Stamping and Forming

When talking about the difference between metal stamping and forming, there are many aspects to look at. Secondary assembly is one method that stampers use to try to make longer components. Although secondary assembly lowers tooling costs, it raises labor expenses for joining the two components. Roll forming allows for the real-time, machine-based adjustment of component lengths, as previously mentioned, greatly reducing the need for human intervention. The addition of holes, trimming, or complicated notching, as well as the potential need for several stamping press stations, makes the stamping of short components more labor-intensive.

Since most stamping tools do not come with sophisticated fabrication choices, a separate process is needed, which may be automated and conveyed, but it comes at an additional cost and requires more setup. Although further fabrication may also be done in roll forming, many modern fabrications like notching, cutting, and holes can be done in line with roll forming, minimizing the costs of secondary fabrication. Additionally, there are a plethora of options for the automated post-fabrication of roll-formed components in conveyorized stations.

Stamping and roll forming provide vastly varied metal possibilities. While both are capable of working with carbon steel and other types of low-strength steel, roll forming is superior when dealing with high-strength steel. The galling, springback, and scratching that characterize high-strength steels make stamping them a challenging task. The degree to which stamped steel returns to its original form is proportional to the hardness of the steel. Stamping may successfully shape high-strength steel, but the final product will still show signs of galling and scratching. With each bending pass, the steel undergoes a little but noticeable curve in roll forming.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Stamping

● The efficiency with which stamping cuts or shapes metal is one of its primary benefits. Furthermore, intricate and detailed forms and motifs may be achieved with the use of stamping.

● The fact that stamping is limited to making basic forms and patterns is one of its major drawbacks. Also, unlike forming, stamping isn't applicable to all metals, making it a less flexible technique overall.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Forming

A major benefit of shaping is that it enables the production of complicated forms that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with stamping alone. Furthermore, shaping may be used to produce forms with greater precision compared to stamping.

The fact that shaping takes longer than stamping is one of its major drawbacks. The need for more sophisticated machinery to form might drive up the cost compared to stamping.

Conclusion

Ultimately, there are a number of considerations that must be made before determining if stamping or forming is the better option for your project demands. These include the following: part, volume, cost, complexity, requirements, tooling time, strength requirements, setup time, etc.

Depending on your project requirements, one of these methods may be more suitable than the other; still, we hope this article has helped clarify the differences between the two so that you can make an informed decision. When deciding how to proceed with their initiatives, engineers and website owners may both benefit greatly from this information!

Now that you've made your choice, Yingxin is here to assist you further in the process of buying the machinery required for metal stamping and forming. Starting from stamping to forming, we have a list of machines that can help make your processes and labor-intensive work convenient. Visit our website or reach out to us to know more.