Metal Punching Services

Metal punching services by Fractory ensure precision and accuracy for your parts. We work with projects from simple to highly complex. Read more about the capabilities below or discuss your needs with our engineering team.

Capabilities

Maximum material thickness
Maximum material thickness
Carbon steel 4 mm
Stainless steel 4 mm
Aluminium 4 mm
Cutting area
Cutting area Up to 2500 x 1250 mm

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How to Order?

While the Fractory platform automates most of the manufacturing processes, sheet metal punching still needs manual quotes and help from our sales engineers.

So send us a request for a quote or upload your CAD files to the platform and our engineers will contact you in 48 hours.

UK-Wide Delivery

We deliver your parts straight to your selected address all over the UK. Fractory takes care of transportation, so you can focus on engineering.

When to Use Metal Punching?

Metal punching can be very cost-effective for batch production or series manufacturing. Here are a few questions to answer for determining if punching is the right fit for your needs.

First, how many parts are you looking to produce? The setup of a turret punch press can easily take 30 minutes, depending on the complexity of the job. If the volumes are small and the parts are flat, it’s entirely possible that the same job can be performed on a laser cutter in less time than it takes to even set up the turret punch, making it a much more cost-efficient alternative.

Second, does your project need custom punches and dies? Standard shapes like circles, ovals, and rectangles are available in many sizes. More complex shapes may require the manufacture of custom dies and punches first. This kind of tooling can cost quite a bit, starting from £200-300 per piece for punching and even 10x of that for blanking jobs. Also, custom tooling needs may prolong the total delivery time by ca 2 weeks.

Third, what is the part size and thickness? The average CNC punch press works with medium-sized sheet metal (2500 x 1250 mm) and in the 0.5…4 mm thickness range for carbon steel, stainless steel and aluminium. Anything outside that scope might not be the best fit.

We would encourage talking to our engineers about your project needs to establish the best possible way to produce your parts.

The Benefits of CNC Sheet Metal Punching

Sheet metal punching offers quite a few important benefits for metal fabrication, some of these are:

  1. Versatility: Sheet metal punching can be used to create a wide range of shapes and sizes, from simple round holes to complex cutouts and embossing enabled by custom tooling.

  2. Tight tolerances: CNC punch presses offer precise control over the punching process, resulting in high accuracy and repeatability.

  3. High speed: Metal punching process is fast and can produce many almost-identical parts quickly and efficiently.

  4. Cost-effective: For high-volume production runs, punching can be the cheapest option. The higher the volume, the lower the cost per part as it drives down the impact of setup costs (and custom tooling, if needed) on the total price.

  5. Minimal material waste: Sheet metal punching is a highly efficient process that produces minimal material waste compared to other cutting methods. The punched sheet metal can also be recycled, reducing environmental impact.

  6. Customisation: Punches and dies can be custom-made to produce complex shapes and features, allowing for the customisation of parts to meet specific design requirements.

  7. Consistency: Punching offers high consistency and uniformity across a production run, resulting in parts that fit together precisely and work as intended.

  8. No HAZ: Unlike thermal cutting methods like laser or plasma cutting, punching does not heat the metal. Thus, it is free of heat-affected zones.

Sheet Metal Punching Process

Metal punching is a common metal fabrication process that uses material removal to get a metal part with the desired shape and features. The punch press moves the punch downward towards the die at high speed and forces it to produce holes, cutouts, embosses, etc.

For clarity’s sake, metal punching and blanking are two different operations with a simple differentiator. In punching, the metal that gets punched out is scrap. In blanking, the final part gets punched out.

Sheet metal punching operations can also be used for forming. Features like embossed patterns, raised letters and other decorative or functional elements are all possible.

Standard shapes like different rectangles, circles and ovals are readily available for any punch press. If more complex shapes are required, there might be a need for custom tooling. The cost-efficiency of customisation usually depends on the total volumes and used materials.

The punch has a counterpart in the form of a die. The important part there is the clearance between the dies and punches to ensure optimum quality.

CNC Punch Press vs Manual

Historically, the manual punch press was of course the first one to launch and is still widely used. But their importance has diminished due to their labour-intensive nature and lesser accuracy.

CNC punch presses are more common today. These machines are powered by hydraulic, pneumatic or electrical means. The turrets can often handle 20 to 40 tools at once, making them very flexible and fast.

CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control. Meaning that those machines are operated by computers running on code generated based on inputs from the machine operator. Therefore, the whole setup from tooling to code generation takes time, which is something to take into account cost-wise.

What Is A CNC Punching Machine?

A CNC punching machine is a type of sheet metal punch that is controlled by a computer to produce precise and efficient cuts. CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control, which means that the machine runs on computer code to perform the tasks at hand. This results in high precision and speed when producing holes or other shapes in sheet metal.

CNC punching machines can be used for a variety of metal sheets, including aluminium, stainless steel and steel, and can produce both components and finished products with accuracy and consistency.

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