Tool & Die

• Wire EDM
• Progressive Dies
• Blank & Pierce Dies
• Forming Dies
• Trim Dies
• Multi-Station Dies
• Stampings

Tool and dies, jigs, fixtures and fabrications make up Specialty Design & Manufacturing's core competency. From simple to complex, SDM is known for manufacturing high quality, precision tooling and fabrications. This quality and accuracy in tool and die construction comes from SDM's more than 39 years experience in the design and build of progressive, blank, form, trim and multi-station dies. SDM's wire EDM machining department provides our staff of highly skilled toolmakers and machinists, with powerful tools for producing high quality, affordable products for SDM customers. Specialty Design also provides die maintenance, repair and stamping services.

About Wire EDM Machining Services

Electrical discharge machining ( EDM ) is a machining method primarily used for hard metals or those that would be impossible to machine with traditional techniques. One critical limitation, however, is that EDM only works with materials that are electrically conductive. EDM can cut small or odd-shaped angles, intricate contours or cavities in extremely hard steel and exotic metals such as titanium, hastelloy, kovar, inconel, and carbide materials.

Often referred to as spark machining or spark eroding , EDM is a non-traditional method of removing material by a series of rapidly recurring electric arcing discharges between an electrode and the material that is being machined, in the presence of an electric field. The EDM cutting tool is guided along the desired path very close to the work but it does not touch the piece. Consecutive sparks produce a series of micro-craters on the work piece and remove material along the cutting path by melting and vaporization. The particles are washed away by the continuously flushing dieelectric fluid.

The EDM process is widely used by the mold-making tool and die industries, but is becoming a common method of making prototype and production parts, especially in the areospace and electronics industries in which production quantities are relatively low.

There are two main types of EDM machines, ram and wire-cut. In ram EDM, a graphite electrode is machined into the desired shape and fed into the workpiece on the end of a vertical ram. This type of EDM is usually performed submerged in an oil based dielectric. In Wire-cut EDM, a thin single-strand metal wire, usually brass, is fed through the workpiece. The wire, which is constantly fed from a spool, is held between upper and lower guides. The guides move in the X-Y plane, and sometimes the upper guide can also move independently giving rise to transitioning shapes (circle on the bottom square at the top). This gives the Wire-cut EDM the ability to be programmed to cut very intricate and delicate shapes. The wire-cut uses water as its dielectric with the water's resistivity and other electrical properties carefully controlled by filters and deionizer units.

Complex progressive die.