Frequently Asked Questions

Metal fabrication is the process of manufacturing metal housings or structures using cutting, bending and assembly processes. Fabrication work is usually preformed on laser, turret presses and press breaks. The assembly process for metal fabrication ranges from simple hardware insertion, welding or other assembly operations.

Metal stamping encompasses a wide range of metal forming operations using custom made die tooling used in a punch press. The dies produce the desired characteristics of a part. Metal stamping can produce higher quality tighter tolerance parts than fabrications.

Material type and tight tolerances are the two biggest factors in metal stamping cost. Readily available material types and standard thickness are always less expensive than obscure material and non-standard thicknesses. The tighter the tolerancing (+/- 0.005" or less) the more operations are needed to hold those tolerances and often require secondary machining operations.

Metal stamping companies are incredibly varied with regards to capabilities, quality of execution and ability to manage complexity. Some metal stampers specialize in simple and easy to produce parts like washers, while other metal stampers like Morrissey Inc. can produce high quality precision stamping with incredibly tight tolerances. Morrissey also has multiple value added operations in-house that most metal stampers do not offer.

Morrissey has a highly skilled engineering department that has extensive experience in reverse engineering products used in automotive, aerospace and defense industries. We can help you blueprint and design a cost-effective, high quality component.

This question has a lot to do with the manufacturability of the part. Metal stamping typically produces less scrap than machining, and this is important when dealing with material like Inconel and titanium. Another factor is cost. Metal stampings are much lower in piece price than machining, even if secondary machining operations are added to the stamping to meet tolerances.

A progressive tool is a single tool which performs all cutting, punching, coining and bending operations to produce a completed part. Sheet material is fed into the die each time the press performs a stamping operation, and a completed part is produced. Building a progressive die to produce a part relates to the quantity needed for the part, the general rule being that anything requiring over 15,000 pieces per year justifies consideration of a progressive die.

The main advantages in using US based manufacturing is superior product quality and on-time delivery. As a general rule, US manufactures produce the highest quality and tightest tolerance parts in the world. Another huge advantage is on-time delivery and quick production reaction time. Overseas manufactures cannot compete with the fast turnaround time of US made parts.

Tooling lead time usually has to do with number of operations needed to produce the part and quantity needed of that part. As a general rule, stage tooling takes 4 to 6 weeks to produce and progressive tooling take 8 to 10 weeks to produce.