Cold Heading & Cold Forming Parts

Cold Heading: What We Run on This Process

Cold heading is the forming route we recommend when a fastener has to be made in volume without giving up strength. A cut length of wire is struck into a die at room temperature, so the metal flows into the head instead of being machined away — the grain follows the shape, the part comes out stronger than the same geometry cut from bar, and very little material is turned into swarf. We arrange cold forming through our vetted partner network, then bring the blanks back to our own floor in Qidong City, Jiangsu Province, China for the features the die cannot hold: bores, shoulders, slots, sealing faces and threads. The parts that come out of this route are the ones you would expect — custom bolts, custom screws, studs, nuts, rivets and pins — plus special cold formed parts that were previously machined from solid. One drawing, one quote and one delivery, whichever half of the job runs where.

Materials and finishes

Cold heading steel needs to be consistent, because the wire has to flow rather than shear. In practice that means low and medium carbon grades such as 1045 and 1215, and on the stainless side 303, 304, 304L, 316 and 316L, with 17-4PH when the drawing asks for higher strength. Alloy steel 4140 is quoted per drawing, and brass and copper alloys — including C360 and C110 — suit electrical and instrument parts where conductivity matters as much as form. Titanium Grade 2 and Grade 5 are handled the same way as any other grade: send the drawing and we confirm the route in DFM. After forming, parts can be deburred, machined, threaded and finished; plating, anodising and similar treatments are arranged through our vetted partner network, managed under one quality process, so the finish sits on the same drawing as the geometry. Our materials page lists the grades we hold in the standard range.

Size, tolerance and capacity limits

As-formed surfaces follow the die and the material’s flow, which is why the forming plan is set against the drawing rather than assumed. Anything that has to be exact is machined after forming to ±0.01 mm on critical features, with general dimensions held to ISO 2768-m unless the drawing states otherwise. The machining side of a formed-then-machined job is limited by our 800 × 500 mm milling envelope, and the floor runs over 100,000 parts per month across all processes. Formed size and wire diameter for a cold formed part are evaluated per drawing — we confirm head geometry, shank length and any undercut before forming starts. If a part is too small a run to justify a die, we quote it machined from bar instead and say so in DFM rather than selling you tooling you do not need.

Documents and shipping

A formed-then-machined part is one part under one process, not two suppliers stitched together. The cold heading part of the job runs through our vetted partner network, managed under one quality process; the machining, threading and finishing steps run on our floor. Parts ship with a material certificate (MTR) for the grade and pre-shipment photos, so you can see the finished batch before it is packed. Send a drawing through the request a quote form and the whole route — forming, machining, finishing, packing — comes back in one response with DFM feedback inside 24 hours.

Industries we support

Cold formed fasteners turn up wherever a part is made in volume and has to hold load: automotive brackets and body hardware, electrical terminals and panel hardware, agriculture and marine assemblies, instrumentation fittings, and general machinery. Because forming and machining run under one order, a cold headed blank with a machined sealing face or a rolled thread arrives as a single part rather than a two-supplier assembly. See industries for the sectors we quote most often, and metal stamping for flat parts that suit a different forming route.

Design guidelines for cost and manufacturability

The two decisions that drive cost on a cold formed part are head geometry and how much of the part you machine afterwards. Keep the head form simple and symmetric where you can, avoid sharp transitions between shank and head, and let the die produce as much of the final shape as possible — every feature moved from machining to forming takes cycle time and material out of the price. For cold forming, grade selection matters more than on a machined part, since the wire has to flow without cracking; if you are unsure, send the drawing and we will suggest a grade that forms cleanly and still meets the strength call-out. Threads are normally rolled rather than cut, which raises fatigue strength and saves material, and machining allowance should be left only where a surface is genuinely cut later — a seal face, a bore, a shoulder. Send the drawing with the tolerances you actually need rather than a blanket tolerance block, and the quote comes back within 24 hours with DFM notes on forming route, material and secondary operations.