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Deep Drawing
American Aluminum Company is a leading manufacturer of deep drawn parts, including cylinders, enclosures and irregular shapes. We maintain a vertically-integrated facility with on-site engineering, designing, and prototyping services. Over the last 100 years, we've earned a reputation for producing highly complex, yet cost-effective, deep drawn parts.
- Sizes: We start with blanks up to 48" in diameter and make deep drawn parts ranging from ½"-24" wide with depths up to 24"
- Materials: Aluminum, brass, bronze, copper, Hastelloy®, Inconel®, Monel®, mu-metal, nickel, stainless steel, steel, titanium, & specialty metals
- Secondary Operations: Anodizing, assembling, blanking, CNC machining, dip brazing, forming, iriditing, heat treating, Heliarc® welding, painting (wet & powder), piercing, spinning, spot welding, trimming & swedging.
Deep Drawing Process
The first step in manufacturing a deep drawn part is choosing the alloy. Our expert engineers can help you select the best metal for your application. We can also source metal for you or use sheet metal or rolled metal you already own. We then cut the metal down to 48" diameter blanks.
The next step is preparing the blanks. Our engineers take great care to prepare each metal blank according to its properties, which maintains the integrity of the alloy and prevents cracks and tears in the finished product.
Once the blank is prepared, the deep drawn part is formed by drawing the metal blank around a punch as it's pulled through a die. The edges of the metal blank are restrained by a blank holder or sleeve.
A key benefit of deep drawing, compared to hydroforming, is the ability to perform multiple re-draws. Each draw can produce a 43% reduction of the metal blank. Greater depths — up to 24" — can be achieved through multiple draws, which reduce the diameter and increase the height of the previously drawn shell.
If you are wondering if Amalco can deep draw your part, take a look at our Deep Drawn Parts Gallery to get a sense of our capabilities.
Benefits of Deep Drawing with Amalco
When you choose Amalco as your manufacturer of deep drawn parts, you get:
- Design & Engineering Expertise: We've been manufacturing complex, seamless metal shapes — including cylinders, boxes, enclosures, and irregular formations — for 100 years. Our experts know exactly how to prepare and handle each alloy, and our zero defects policy ensures complete customer satisfaction.
- Reliable Customer Service: Our expert engineers are available to help you with each step of the process, from finalizing your CAD drawings, to choosing and souring the alloy, to selecting the secondary operations you need.
- Value-Added Services: We perform many secondary operations on-site, from assembling deep drawn parts to blanking, welding, and finishing. Doing it all in-house generally results in cost savings, fewer defects, higher quality finished pieces and less paperwork (single purchase orders).
Contact Amalco's engineering support team as early as possible in your product development process. We can help you save money on tooling and production costs, while also delivering shorter lead times than the competition. Send us your CAD drawings today, and our expert engineers will help you get started.
Deep Draw / Deep Drawing Considerations
- Common shapes for Deep Drawn / Deep Draw parts are cans, boxes, and bottles, as well as irregularly shaped products.
- Deep Drawing / Deep Draw can achieve a 43% reduction. Numerous re-draws can be performed on deep drawn parts to attain the desired depth.
- The tooling for Deep Drawing / Deep Draw requires a punch, die and blank holder. Therefore, if cost is a factor in the design/manufacture of your part we invite you to contact Amalco's engineering support team to confirm Deep Drawing is the best solution prior to completing your design. We may be able to offer you an alternative process which can lower costs.
Quality System (Conforms to MIL-I-45208)
With our MIL-Grade Quality System 
, our commercial customers enjoy the same critical quality control standards that have allowed us to deliver Defense Department contracted products for many years. Amalco employs the latest technologies in its QC inspection processes, and maintains its own QC Manual focused on a goal of "Zero Defects on All Products Produced."
Deep Drawn Aluminum Boxes & Covers
Aluminum boxes and covers manufactured to your specifications, including custom designs, sizes, and configurations. We maintain stock tooling to manufacture hundreds of typical sizes and configurations of rectangular aluminum boxes, enclosures, and covers.
Use our convenient Aluminum Boxes and Covers Buyer's Guide to specify and order your aluminum parts by outside width, outside length, maximum overall height, inside corner radius, inside bottom radius, thickness, and cover fitting requirements. Government certifications on specifications are available upon request where applicable.
Deep Drawn Cans
Deep drawing is used to produce seamless metal enclosures such as cans, boxes, and bottles, as well as irregular shaped products. Deep drawing requires tooling, including a punch, die, and blank holder. A punch is pressed against a material blank and the material is drawn through the die to form the desired shape.
Deep drawing can achieve up to 43% reduction on a metal blank, and multiple successive deep draws can be used to achieve part size or shape requirements. A variety of metals can be deep drawn, including aluminum, stainless steel, aluminized steel, cold rolled steel, brass, bronze, cupro nickel, nickel, and titanium.
Use our convenient Aluminum Cans Buyer's Guide to specify and order your aluminum parts by outside diameter, maximum overall height, inside radius, and blank thickness requirements.
ARINC Cans - Square Aluminum Enclosures for Aircraft Electronic Instrumentation
ARINC (Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated) was chartered by the US Government (Federal Radio Commission, now Federal Communications Commission) to coordinate non-governmental radio communications. ARINC developed standards for interchangeable trays and boxes used to enclose standard line-replaceable units (like radios) in aircraft (known as ARINC electronics enclosures, or ARIN cans). ARINC square avionics instrumentation mounts are designed to be lightweight, and to enable the rapid exchange of on board electronics components without complex fasteners, connectors, or the need for special tools or test equipment.
Amalco delivers aluminum deep drawn aircraft instrument cases and electronics enclosures in both standard and special (custom) designs and sizes, meeting dimensional requirements for ARINC Specification Number 408A . The deep drawn process ensures exact tolerances, meeting ARINC requirements and your specifications.
Amalco provides complete in-house facilities for fabrication of ARINC cans to your specifications, made from 0.050" thick 3003-0 Aluminum (6061 optional). Piercing, attachments, and other secondary operations are performed in-house, saving you paperwork and procurement processing time (single authorization) while ensuring strict quality control from raw material through finished product. Brazed assemblies, dip-brazing and finishing (including alodine or anodize and paint) are also performed in-house at Amalco's Mountainside, New Jersey facility. Contact Amalco for your ARINC cans and mounts.
Use our convenient ARINC Brochure to specify and order your aluminum parts by alloy and reference number.
Deep Drawing and Secondary Operations
Deep Drawing can be a multi-draw operation performed on a specially prepared metal blank. Deep Drawying can be followed by secondary operations which range from custom fabrication to light assemble to finishing.
Amalco is uniquely equipped to perform a full range of secondary operations including: spinning, stamping, and CNC machining all in one facility. Heliarc welding, spot welding, riveting, brazing (dip-brazing), heat treating, anodizing and painting performed on-site as one purchase order under one comprehensive quality assurance program, in our clean and efficient facility. Our integrated process results in shorter lead times and lower costs for most customers.
Request a Quote
A deep draw, hydroforming, or dip brazing specialist will review your project and recommend the optimal solution. Complete and submit the form below to get started.
Why Do We Choose Amalco?
“Amalco offers a 'one-stop shop'. In the past, our combustion cones were shipped back and forth between several subcontractors to have them perform different production steps. Amalco performs each of these operations at one facility, thereby reducing our cone supplier base from three to one. Now, we coordinate inventory and communications with only one cone supplier, which saves us invaluable time and resources.”
— L.N.,
Director Of Supply Chain Management
for a major manufacturer of waste oil burning heating systems
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