Sheet Metal Materials

Steel, stainless steel, aluminum, brass and copper, with galvanized and galvannealed steel covering corrosion sensitive work. Meco forms all five families from coil and sheet. Steel takes the largest share because it is the cheapest metal that bends reliably, and formability rather than strength is usually what decides the grade.

No, and this catches out experienced designers. 18 gauge is 1.21 mm in steel, 1.02 mm in aluminum and 1.27 mm in stainless, because the three metals use different gauge systems. That 25 percent spread changes your bend allowance and flat pattern, so call out the decimal or metric thickness on the drawing and treat the gauge number as a note.

Of the grades we stamp, half hard 301 stainless is the strongest at 860 to 1100 MPa tensile, and spring temper 301 goes higher still. Annealed 304 and 316 sit at 485 to 620 MPa, and cold rolled carbon steel at 290 to 340 MPa. Strength per unit weight tells a different story, though: 5052-H32 aluminum is roughly a third the density of steel, so on a weight budget it often beats a steel grade with three times its tensile figure. Full numbers are in the property table above.

Aluminum 3003-H14 and cartridge brass C260 form the most easily, both accepting an inside radius around half the material thickness and tolerating deep draws. Cold rolled 1008 steel and annealed 304 stainless are close behind. Half hard 301 stainless and 6061-T6 aluminum are the two that most often crack on a radius the drawing assumed was safe.

It is expressed as a multiple of material thickness, and it runs from roughly 0.5 times thickness on soft aluminum and annealed stainless up to 3 times thickness on 6061-T6. A bend line parallel to the rolling direction needs a larger radius than the same bend across the grain. We confirm the achievable radius against your thickness and tooling during DFM rather than assuming the table value.

5052-H32 for almost any part with bends in it. It forms at roughly half the radius 6061-T6 needs and it is not heat treatable, so the strength you specify is the strength that survives forming. Choose 6061 when the finished part needs the higher strength, and either form it in T4 and age afterwards or open the radii out to 2 or 3 times thickness.

Both are zinc coated, but galvannealed is annealed after coating so the zinc alloys with the iron underneath. That gives a dull matte surface which paints and powder coats far better than the spangled surface of standard hot dip galvanized. Galvannealed is slightly less corrosion resistant for the same coating weight and is the harder of the two to form at tight radii.

304 for general formed parts, 301 when the part needs spring action. 301 work hardens much more aggressively, so it reaches higher strength in the harder tempers but springs back several degrees where annealed 304 barely moves. That springback is a tooling compensation problem, so it has to be known before the die is cut. Both are harder on tool edges than carbon steel, which shows up in die maintenance cost.

They are regional standards for the same two base grades rather than four different materials. SPCC (Japan and China), DC01 (Europe) and ST12 (China) are all cold rolled, deep drawing grades that behave like the 1008 and 1010 CRS on our bend table, while SPHC (Japan and China) is the hot rolled commercial grade that matches A1011. If your drawing calls out one of these standards, we quote the equivalent grade we already run rather than asking you to reissue the print.

Yes, and it is worth considering when a part needs the look of stainless without the cost of 304. 430 is a ferritic grade, so it is magnetic and less corrosion resistant than 304 or 316, but it costs less and is common on appliance trim, range hoods and architectural panels that see limited exposure to moisture or chlorides. It forms similarly to annealed 304 at moderate bend radii, though it work hardens less predictably across a batch, so we check springback during DFM before committing to a die.

Yes. Mill test reports to EN 10204 3.1, certificates of analysis, coating class verification against A653, REACH and RoHS documentation, conflict minerals reporting, PPAP packages, first article inspection and CMM results are available on request, with traceability from the coil or heat number through to the finished part.