We get this question every day as manufacturers struggle with ballooning lead times, expensive changes to tooling, and quality control for critical components. And the answer may surprise you!
Sophisticated high-volume parts that traditionally required complex tooling on a progressive power press can be an excellent fit for the fourslide manufacturing process. With its unique integration of stamping and forming operations, the fourslide process can dramatically reduce typical tooling costs, halve tooling lead times, and eliminate post-production adjustments needed to meet specifications.
This fall marks our 60th year producing stamped and formed metal parts here in Bristol, Connecticut. Boy have we ever come a long way.
A Family Business Deeply Rooted in Bristol
Arthur Funk and a partner founded Fourslide Spring Products, Inc. on the 4th floor of Bristol’s historic J.H. Sessions building in 1962. Starting with a single customer and a single machine for fabricating parts, Fourslide has steadily grown into a $6 million operation employing 25 workers.
All of us at Fourslide Spring and Stamping will miss Executive Vice President Jim Richards as he retires after 17 years at the company.
Jim has been an integral part of Fourslide since the day he arrived in Bristol, armed with a wealth of knowledge and years of experience in manufacturing, machine building, and machine tool sales. With a keen skill in negotiation, Jim was instrumental in forging great relationships with many businesses that remain loyal customers. Under his guidance, core business sales rose an average of 5% per year, with sales of new tools increasing from 15 per year to more than 50 in 2022.
Mark Ratta, the Working Leader on our production floor, joined Fourslide nearly 30 years ago as a member of the Shipping and Receiving Department.
“I didn’t even know what a fourslide machine looked like when I got here,” offers Mark. Three decades later, he is a very accomplished set-up man and a highly effective Working Leader.
After a 20-month hiatus – both scheduled and dictated by COVID protocols – the next phase of our facility update and reorganization is back in full swing.
The first stage of upgrades intended to boost production capacity by as much as 50% involved relocating our toolroom to an up-fitted area previously vacated by our assembly operation. This new phase involves the area that previously housed our toolmaking activities.
We’re often asked this question after prospective customers receive a quotation. The answer is quite simple: your Fourslide tool’s life is the same as the life expectancy of the part it’s making.
Tooling built by Fourslide Spring & Stamping is truly a Non-Recurring Expense. All maintenance, repair, and even replacement of the tooling are free of charge. So long as the design of the part remains the same, the customer never pays another nickel in tooling charges.
We are often asked to recommend a material for a customer’s flat spring, spring clip, battery contact, or other custom part. The standard response is that we do not make material recommendation, because the application requirements (e.g., spring force, conductivity, range of motion and corrosion resistance) are so critical to material selection. Our expertise lies in the manufacture of springs and stampings, not the design of the part for its intended function.
Rather, we suggest the materials that are viable alternatives relative to the manufacturability of a part. Many part geometries can be accomplished utilizing spring-tempered materials such as stainless steel, spring brass or phosphor bronze. When possible, these are preferable because they do not require heat treatment subsequent to forming, a process that can cause part distortion.
A very high percentage of the parts for which we receive requests for quotation have never been made before. Whether it’s a flat spring, a battery contact, a wire form or a spring clip, our customers are usually fully immersed in designing a part that will fit their product and function as required. The manufacturability of their part often takes a back seat, but this is our primary concern when reviewing a new design.
The most commonly considered factors for manufacturability include the tightness of bend radii, grain direction of the material, material temper, sufficient clearance for over-bending, and the distortion resulting from the heat treat process.
One particularly insidious potential problem that often goes overlooked is part tangling and nesting. Read More →
Here at Fourslide, we manufacture most parts from flat strip material. The costs of production tooling are typically justifiable for parts with an annual usage of as few as 5,000 pieces. Despite the low volume, there is often no better or more economical way to manufacture the part.
This is not the case for wire forms. When we receive an inquiry for wire forms with lower volume requirements (fewer than 20,000), we refer that customer to a CNC wire former. Because there is usually no tooling charge for CNC wire forming, it is a more economical process for manufacturing low volumes.
When volumes increase, however, the greater production speeds of the fourslide process – which result in lower per-piece prices – overcome the initial tooling investment. Read More →
Fourslide Spring & Stamping | April 1, 2019Complex parts like this one benefit greatly from the prototype process in determining final feature geometry.
Here at Fourslide, we have long offered prototyping services for our customers. A very high percentage of the jobs we quote are for flat springs, contacts, clips, and other metal parts that have never been previously made, to be used in brand-new devices and products. We pride ourselves on helping customers make informed decisions about part design that save them both time and money.
