Welcome to Slide Forming 101

This page is offered as a service so that you might learn a little bit
about the slide forming process and equipment, how it works, and why
it is a benefit on some stamped parts.

In conventional press equipment you get one motion only as seen by this diagram:

To transfer the energy of the stroke of the ram in any direction other than straight up
or down, a cam must be used. This may cause a great deal of increased cost when the tooling is manufactured, and usually causes the tooling to run slower. The cam units wear increasing the maintenance cost of the tooling, and hence, the piece price         

  OnSlide forming equipment such as Four-Slides and Multi-Slides the machine has a
die area with a standard ram action as well as a reverse action easily added. Beyond
this die area is a forming section which has cam acting form tools which come in from four directions including the top.  With these cam actions already built into the machine, all the stamper must do
is add the form tools.
The construction costs and maintenance costs are significantly reduced.
The flexibility available to the tooling designer using this equipment allows for more complex parts produced faster and more efficiently.

That means less cost to the customer!

Another advantage of slide forming is the ease of installing special equipment onto
slide forming machines. With rear actions, reverse cut off's, auxiliary slide units, and tapping heads many secondary operations can be eliminated. In some cases it is even possible to feed in more than one strip at a time and assemble parts right on the machine. Spot welding is only one of the many assembly methods available right on
the machine.

Contact us today to learn more about how this exciting technology can
add up to savings for you!