More about Cold Headed Parts

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Many of the common metal objects we use today are made by cold forging. These products are known as cold headed parts. Nails, plugs, fasteners, bolts, studs, pins and rivets are all types of cold headed parts. Originally, cold forging was used for making small non-ferrous metal parts. Today, however, cold headed parts can be made from steel and can weigh as much as one-hundred pounds. They serve a vast range of industries. Cold forging processes can shape a variety of components, from drum lugs to hex washer head screws.

One of the most significant advantages of cold forging over machining is the minimal amount of waste produced. The process even strengthens parts by hardening strains and generating advantageous grain flow. Cold forging also produces a high-quality surface finish, as well as minimizing machining time. The major reason that it is not used for more parts is that the tool design and setup is expensive, and its high cost usually favors mass production. This is unlike various CNC machining operations, which tend to be more suited to smaller production runs of more specialized products, and which can produce a significant amount of waste.

In a cold heading operation, a rod or wire is sheared, transferred to the proper assembly, and then struck by heading punches until the correct upsetting is reached. An upsetting is a piece of the original material reformed by the heading punch (or similar process). In some cold heading operations, the work-piece is sheared after the heading process.

Additional cold forming processes are extrusion, bending, knurling, thread rolling, chamfering and trimming. Industries using these processes are almost all-inclusive; an obvious example is the construction industry, which goes through its fair share of nails, bolts and studs. Cold headed parts, however, are used in automobiles, aircrafts, medical apparatus, office supplies and virtually every other industry. Even minute electronic components can be produced by cold forming with extreme precision.