Our Tool Room
Our tool room is the heart of our business. The company was founded in 1912 as a tool and die shop, where we quickly built a reputation for precision by meeting the most challenging needs in the market—the impossible projects. This required the best equipment and the most skilled toolmakers capable of consistently performing at a level not easily found in the market. Maintaining this unique formula has been critical to our success, evolution, and growth over the years.
We attribute a lot of our success to the state-registered Toolmakers Apprenticeship Program at Hobson & Motzer, which has been in place since our founding, and is still alive and well today.
Today, our tool room serves our internal tool, die, and fixture needs for our stamping, machining, and assembly departments. We operate a large, 50+-person tool room with more than 25 certified journeyman toolmakers. Our ability to develop and attract top talent has been grounded in consistently maintaining a tool room with cutting-edge technology. Paired with some of the most innovative progressive tool designers in the industry, it creates a unique combination that makes Hobson & Motzer a smart choice for your precision metal stamping needs.
Class-A Progressive Die Tooling
There are many ways to make a progressive die. As a high-volume stamper, Hobson & Motzer builds the most robust tools possible. Also vertically integrated, our progressive dies are all built internally; we even machine our own die sets.
Quality is engineered into our tools from end to end. It drives:
- Consistency
- Repeatability
- Lower maintenance
- Higher performance
- Higher-quality parts
Hobson & Motzer designs and builds tooling of the highest quality for our precision metal stampings. Every die is built to your exact specifications and can be produced as small as 3” x 3” to as large as 60” x 30”.
- Fully equipped tool room. Our state-of-the-art tool room is staffed with a diverse team, working two shifts, and equipped with the latest ultra-precision wire EDM and 5-axis high-speed machining centers with spindle speeds in excess of 50,000 RPM.
- High-tech design process. We utilize cutting-edge 3-D modeling software and can import a wide variety of file formats (including IDES, .dwg and .dxf) to speed your die through design.
- Seamless transfer from design to production. Our design software is linked to production equipment in our tool room for seamless wire EDM and CNC machine programming—resulting in error-free manufacturing of your dies.
- Intricate shapes. With a magnification range from 20-to-1 to 100-to-1, our optical grinders can create intricate shapes for tools as well as for custom-designed rolls, utilized in shaping wire and rolled metal strip stock. We maintain this old-school technology and expertise because it makes perfect sense for some applications.
- Complex parts. Essential for fabricating the most complex tooling, our wire EDM machines are continually upgraded to the latest generation precision technology. We use a wide range of wire diameters from .004” to .010”—and when combined with our on-floor programming, can run 24/7.
Spare Tooling—Rapid Response
During the design process, critical areas of the tool are identified, and a robust spares program is built for each die. This is a unique approach and contingency plan to minimize downtime. Along with exhaustive records, the spares are kept on-hand, either as finished components or in a blank form, which can be quickly turned into a finished component. With this inventory available, downtime and delays are virtually eliminated.
