Punching, machining, and forming of identification components to your released drawing, with hole cuts in any location from .05″ to 3.5″, machined hole patterns, and formed features. No tooling fee on in-house equipment.
U.S. Nameplate Co. houses a full line of machining and forming equipment to shear, bend, punch, and cut your parts, in both metal and flexible materials. We run a full in-house machine shop alongside the printing floor, which means one purchase order covers the graphics and the finished metal part — nothing gets handed between suppliers halfway through the job.
For engineers and purchasing teams, that matters most when the artwork has to line up with a machined feature. A hole pattern that has to clear a switch, a bend that has to miss a legend, an embossed serial field sitting beside screen-printed text: those get resolved in one building, against one drawing, instead of across two vendors and two revision histories.
It also matters when something changes. A single supplier who prints, cuts, and forms the part can turn a revision around without renegotiating it across a supply chain — which is why production teams tend to judge an identification supplier less on the first order than on how reliable the tenth one is.
U.S. Nameplate Co. manufactures any rectangular, square, or round metal nameplate, serial or VIN plate, or control panel without an additional tooling charge. We hold a large library of existing dies, and there is no tooling fee for any of our in-house equipment.
A one-time charge applies only when your part needs a shape no existing die covers and a new tool has to be created. If you are comparing quotes, that is usually where the difference shows up: a supplier without an in-house die library and machine shop has to price tooling into a first run that we can often absorb.
For prototypes and short runs, digital routing avoids tooling altogether. A CNC cutting head follows the CAD path directly, so a first article does not wait on die fabrication.
Machining cuts raw material to a final shape and size through controlled material removal. The traditional operations are turning, boring, drilling, milling, broaching, sawing, shaping, planing, reaming, and tapping, run on lathes, milling machines, drill presses, and turret punch presses.
For identification components, the operations that come up most often are hole cutting, slotting, notching, corner radii, countersinks, and edge finishing. We cut holes in almost any location, from .05″ to 3.5″ in size, varying by material and thickness, and machine hole patterns to your print.
If you are unsure how a plate should attach, describe the mounting surface and our engineers can recommend an approach — through-holes and mechanical fasteners, adhesive backing, or a combination — based on the material, the surface, and the production process it has to survive.
Forming uses compression, tension, or shear to deform material into the shape you need. Nothing is cut away; the metal is displaced. Press brake bending is done to your specifications, and rigid plates can be roll-formed to conform to curved surfaces.
Roll forming passes a strip of metal through consecutive sets of rolls, each adding an incremental part of the bend until the finished cross-section is reached. It suits parts with long lengths or high quantities, where a single press operation would not hold the profile consistently.
Embossing is the other forming operation worth knowing about. A matched male and female die raises characters or graphics off the face of the part, on material up to .032″ thick. The value is durability: an embossed serial number stays legible many years after harsh service has worn any printed image off the same plate. On equipment that gets washed down, sand-blasted by its own environment, or simply left outdoors for decades, embossing is what keeps the part doing its job.
We stock sheet metal in the gauges industrial identification work actually calls for, and convert flexible substrates on the same floor.
If you do not have all of that yet, send what you have and call 319-895-8804. Customer service is open 8:00 AM–4:30 PM CST Monday through Thursday and 7:00 AM–3:30 PM CST Friday, and you will always reach someone in person.
Punching, machining, and forming is usually one step in a larger part. Pair it with metal etching or Metalphoto processing for marking that survives outdoors, embossing and forming for raised characters, or die and digital cutting when the geometry drives the job. Finished parts most often ship as metal nameplates, serial plates, or aluminum control panels.
We offer free quotes on all punching, machining & forming orders. Send the drawing, artwork, quantities, application, and timing you have today — our art department turns a blueprint into a press-ready proof, and we will tell you what is still open.
Most jobs finish 7–10 days after the proof is approved. Rush orders can be produced in 3–5 business days for an additional fee. Orders ship within a 10% over/under quantity standard.
Request a Quote or call 319-895-8804 and you will reach someone in person.
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