Metal Stamping Services for Precision Stamped Parts

It depends almost entirely on how many stations the die needs. Across the industry, simple single stage dies sit in the low thousands and complex multi station progressive dies for automotive parts run into six figures. Those are guide figures, not a Meco price list. The important number is cost per part: a die amortised over 500,000 pieces adds a fraction of a cent each. Send a drawing and we return itemised tooling and piece pricing in 24 hours.

Metal stamping uses a press and a hardened steel die to cut, punch, bend, draw, or emboss sheet metal into a finished part in one or more strokes. The die carries the geometry, so every part is identical. It is the lowest cost route to metal parts in volume once the tooling is paid for. Our industrial manufacturing guide sets it alongside casting, forging, and machining.

Almost any thin walled metal component made in quantity. Common examples are automotive brackets and heat shields, EMI shield cans and PCB brackets in electronics, appliance panels and chassis, spring clips, washers, electrical terminals, lamp reflectors, and furniture hinges. If a part starts life as flat sheet and you need thousands of them, it is probably a stamping.

Progressive dies carry the strip through a series of stations, each adding one operation, until a finished part separates at the last station. Compound dies perform two or more operations, typically blanking and piercing, in a single stroke on a single station, which produces exceptionally flat parts. Progressive tooling costs more up front but wins clearly above roughly 100,000 pieces a year.

Flat features reach 0.05 mm at DIN 6930-2 fine class on small nominal sizes, widening as the part gets bigger. Formed and bent dimensions run looser, typically 0.1 to 0.5 mm, because the material springs back after the punch retracts. Where a single feature needs to be tighter than stamping allows, we stamp the blank and finish that feature with CNC machining, which holds 0.01 mm.

We stamp aluminum, carbon steel, stainless steel, brass, bronze, and copper, up to about 6 mm thick. Harder and higher strength grades need larger bend radii and wear the die faster, which shows up in tooling life rather than in the first sample. Above 6 mm the part usually belongs in forging or casting instead.

Use stamping above roughly 10,000 parts a year, where the low piece price repays the die. Use laser cutting plus bending for prototypes and runs under that, or while the design is still changing. Use CNC machining when tolerances go tighter than 0.05 mm or the part is thicker than sheet. Many programs use all three across their life.

Quotes come back in under 24 hours. Untooled prototype parts ship in 1 to 2 weeks via laser cutting and bending. Stamping tooling takes 3 to 6 weeks to design, cut, and try out, plus roughly a week for first article approval. Once the tool is signed off, production typically ships 2 to 4 weeks from purchase order.

Meco has no minimum order quantity. In practice, small quantities are made without tooling using laser cutting or CNC bending, from as few as 10 pieces, while true progressive die stamping starts to make economic sense above about 10,000. Read more on on demand manufacturing for low volume options.

Yes, and it is the main reason buyers consolidate here. Surface finishing, heat treatment, welding, hardware insertion, and full mechanical assembly all run in the same plants under one quality system. You get a finished, inspected assembly on one purchase order instead of managing four suppliers and the freight between them.

Meco is IATF 16949:2016 certified, which is the automotive quality management standard and incorporates every ISO 9001:2015 requirement plus stricter process controls. We supply EN 10204 3.1 material certificates, PPAP and FAI documentation, CMM reports, and REACH and RoHS declarations on request. We are not certified to AS9100, ISO 13485, or ITAR, and we say so up front rather than at the audit.

Your design stays yours. Meco provides IP protection and signs NDAs as standard before any drawing review begins, which matters most for brand owners sending a full product rather than a single part. Tooling ownership and amortisation terms are set out in writing on the quote, so there is nothing to discover later.