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Metal Forming Processes & Products
Amalco has been deep drawing, hydroforming, and dip brazing complex, custom metal parts for OEMs throughout the world for 100 years. We have the machinery and the expertise to manufacture your most demanding, difficult-to-make metal parts on-site in our 60,000 square foot facility located in Mountainside, New Jersey.
As a vertically integrated company, Amalco has the in-house experience, manufacturing capabilities, engineering support, tool/design expertise, and stringent QC processes in place to meet — and exceed — your critical design and delivery requirements.
Visit our comprehensive parts gallery to see examples of the many customized products we've made for our customers, including deep-drawn and hydroformed parts.
Metal Forming Processes
Deep Drawing
As a metal forming process, Amalco's deep drawing capabilities are in high-demand. This method involves drawing a sheet-metal blank around a punch as it's pulled through a die. Deep drawing allows for multiple draws, too; so even though it only achieves 43% reductions per draw, greater depths can be formed with multiple draws. Deep drawing is ideal for complex cylinders, enclosures, and irregular shapes.
Hydroforming
This metal forming process requires a special pressurized forming chamber, a sheet metal blank, and a punch made in the shape of the desired metal part. When the hydraulic chamber is closed over the sheet-metal blank, fluid pressure is applied while the punch is pushed up into the blank. This forms the blank into the shape of the punch. Hydroforming is ideal for convex/concave domes, covers, and enclosures.
Compared to deep drawing, hydroforming is usually less expensive when producing small quantities, since it requires fewer tools. However, hydroforming does not allow multiple draws.
Dip Brazing
Aluminum dip brazing is a process in which two pieces of metal are joined together with a filler metal when heated to the melting point of the filler metal in the molten chemical salt bath. Dip brazing allows pieces to be joined when there is no access to the joint, because the joining material is drawn into the joint through capillary action. Dip brazing has the benefit of creating air-tight joints that are often stronger than the constituent parts. Dip brazing is appropriate for a relatively limited variety of alloys because it depends on a specific relationship between the melting point of the filler and the alloys to be joined.
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Metal Spinning / Spin Forming
Amalco also offers metal spinning (which is sometimes known as spin forming) as a secondary operation. Commercial metal spinning is the metalworking process used to further customize shapes that would be impossible to form through deep drawing or hydroforming alone.
Spin forming is an effective production method for prototypes as well as high-quantity production runs. It's relatively easy to make alterations with spin forming, too — which is why it's known as a particularly cost-effective metal forming process.
Multi-process Combinations
At Amalco, we can also create customized metal parts through a combination of deep drawing, hydroforming, dip brazing and secondary operations. This allows us to manufacture complex, unusual metal parts that other shops won't even quote.
Secondary Operations (Value-Added Services)
- CNC machining
- Spinning
- Piercing, blanking & forming
- Heat treating
- Painting
- Spot welding
- Anodizing
- Heliarc® welding
- Iriditing
- Light assembly
- Trimming
- Swedging
Materials
- Aluminum
- Nickel
- Stainless steel
- Monel®
- Hastelloy®
- Brass
- Inconel®
- Titanium
- Copper
- Steel
- Mu-metal
- Special metals
Quality System (Conforms to MIL-I-45208)
We maintain a MIL-Grade Quality System 
, which enabled us our commercial customers to benefit from the same critical standards that have allow to supply defense contracting components to the US government and Military. At Amalco, we employ the latest technologies and QC inspection processes, and we maintain our own QC Manual focused on the goal of attaining "Zero Defects on All Products Produced."
Metal Products Made by Amalco
Amalco has made countless metal parts for customers all around the world. Visit our metal parts image gallery to see examples of our products, which include:
Deep-Drawn Aluminum Boxes & Covers
Amalco manufactures aluminum boxes and covers to our customers' specifications, including custom designs, sizes, and configurations. We maintain in-stock tooling to manufacture hundreds of typical sizes and configurations of rectangular aluminum boxes, enclosures, and covers.
Deep-Drawn Cans
Our deep drawing capabilities enable us to produce seamless metal enclosures such as cans, boxes, and bottles, as well as irregular shapes. Deep drawing requires high-quality tooling, including punches, dies, and blank holders — which we have in-house.
ARINC Cans — Square Aluminum Enclosures for Aircraft Electronic Instrumentation
Amalco delivers aluminum deep-drawn aircraft instrument cases and electronics enclosures in both standard and specialized (custom) designs and sizes, meeting dimensional requirements for ARINC Specification Number 408A . Our deep-drawn process ensures exact tolerances, meeting ARINC requirements and your precise specifications.
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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