“In general, we go back and forth from hot-rolled steel, cold-rolled steel, and galvanized steel, and then all of a sudden we’ll run aluminum,” he said. Because a tool might run for just a few hours or a day, we do a lot of changeovers,” LaVigne said. “Since we specialize in the low to medium volume, we stamp a lot of different part numbers. “And we’re moving a lot of material at once, so it can be really easy to damage the material.”īlock Cross-Contamination. Because the manufacturer handles not only aluminum and copper but also steel, there is a high risk of cross-contamination. While stamped steel parts can endure being dropped on top of one another into bins or Gaylord boxes, softer copper and aluminum components demand extra attention to prevent damage, dings, and dents from even ordinary handling that would otherwise render them off-spec, LaVigne said. “Copper is dense, weighing more than steel, but it’s also soft,” LaVigne said. Shield From Damage. LaVigne said that some other challenges related to copper and aluminum are because they’re soft. If you stamp copper and leave it exposed to the elements for months in its bare form, by the time you reach back in there to retrieve it, it will already be tarnished,” LaVigne said. Prevent Oxidization. “One of the problems we run into with copper is it tarnishes quickly.
Stamping soft copper and aluminum comes with handling challenges. Handling Soft Copper, Aluminum With “Kid Gloves” The balance of the parts are steel and GPO-3, a glass polyester laminate. “We are the largest supplier to many of our end customers,” said Monti Plant Manager Nick LaVigne. Most of them are shipped to another Monti manufacturing plant for final production for its electrical supply manufacturers. About 30 percent of the parts the plant stamps are copper and aluminum (see Figure 1).
Monti’s stamping division in Greenwood, S.C., specializes in low- to medium-volume stampings from 10,000 to 200,000 parts per part number annually. The company has approximately 250 employees among four facilities.
The company performs stamping, machining, press brake bending, welding, CNC turning, plating, and epoxy dipping, among other processes, in the manufacture of conductors, insulators, and steel components. Several of its customers are FORTUNE® 500 companies. is a multiplant, midmarket major metal components supplier to the electrical distribution industry. If you’re Monti, you handle them carefully-with tightly bound plastic film. How do you handle stampings made from soft metals? Very carefully.
0 kommentar(er)
