MuShield Bolsters Hydroforming Service Offering With New Machine Acquisition
From 1 to 10,000 parts (and beyond), MuShield is the trusted source for hydroforming manufacturing. Since 2010, MuShield has been hydroforming magnetic shields and other enclosures made from various sheet metal alloys that were once spun or fabricated. The result is a faster and repeatable process and far more consistent parts from run to run (+/- .002′′ or better tolerance on all features of hydroformed parts), which means, as loosely mentioned above, overall satisfaction from our customers – who range from such diverse verticals including aerospace, high-tech, medical, utilities, military, and others – happily experience the per piece part price going down while the quality goes up.
MuShield has the expertise, technology, and bandwidth in place to take care of your hydroforming needs, specific to your exact application. For many, the choice to move forward with hydroforming over other manufacturing practices such as stamping comes down to cost and lead time. Hydroforming can be a more economical solution, reducing costs due to the elimination of the need for extra finishing and polishing in a lot of cases with standard cut-driven processes.
MuShield recently informed us here at the Gateway of their new hydroforming machine that they’ve added to their fleet of machines at their headquarters in Londonderry. We sat down with Luke Grilli, their Vice President of Sales and Marketing, to discuss their new acquisition and what this means for their customers as they enter the new year.
Tell us about the new hydroforming machine. What is it? How did MuShield land on this particular piece of equipment over others in the market?
We are bringing on a Beckwood Press 16” Triform, which is a state-of-the-art machine that will help take us to the next level when it comes to precision sheet metal hydroforming. Beckwood Press has a long history of producing great hydroforming machines, and this buying decision started about 5 years at the FABTech trade show.
Tell us about the new hydroforming machine. What is it? How did MuShield land on this particular piece of equipment over others in the market?
We are bringing on a Beckwood Press 16” Triform, which is a state-of-the-art machine that will help take us to the next level when it comes to precision sheet metal hydroforming. Beckwood Press has a long history of producing great hydroforming machines, and this buying decision started about 5 years at the FABTech trade show.
How does the acquisition and installation of this machine bolster MuShield’s hydroforming capabilities?
Not only can we hydroform larger parts with this new machine, but the repeatability from production run to production run will be far more consistent with the CNC controls on the machine, when compared to our 60+ year old hydroform current deployed on the manufacturing floor.
What are MuShield’s current hydroforming capabilities? Describe what you do for your customers. How much is custom vs. standardized work (not sure if there’s a difference or if there is a standard piece or part you offer that people order)?
All work we do here is custom. MuShield does not produce a product, per se, but work to each customers’ specific design. If they need design assistance, we are happy to offer that as well. Currently, we can start with a 12” dia. blank, limiting the size of the final part we can hydroform. Now we are able to start with a 16” dia. blank, increasing the size of the parts we can offer our customers.
How do you help customers realize their custom hydroforming needs?
We like to talk with them about their specific needs. What type of quantities will you be needing now and in the near term? What is your budget for tooling? Is this a final design or more of an R&D design? Answering these questions allows out to determine where we fit in the manufacturing life of our customers’ part. We like to use the scenario where hydroforming is a great way to prove out a design that may be in the thousands down the line. Hydroform tooling costs a fraction when compared to progressive die tooling and takes weeks to build as opposed to months, so if changes need to be made in the design after the initial R&D quantity is produced, it is a long and expensive process.
What are the benefits of hydroforming? Why is it important?
Other than the cost and lead time for tooling concerns mentioned above, consistent parts from production run to production run and challenging geometries that cannot be hit from standard sheet metal fabrication are two huge benefits to hydroforming. We can work with many different alloys and have produced parts that would be unachievable for most sheet metal fabrication companies.
How has hydroforming grown as a service offering for MuShield over the years?
We started off as metal spinners, which has become a lost are in this day and age. Most of our metal spinning applications have now migrated to hydroforming and our book of business has grown due to the geometries we are able to produce in the hydroform. In regard to the magnetic shielding application, hydroforming is a great option when producing simple or challenging magnetic shields due to the large radii that magnetic waves of flux are attracted to. Once they hit those radii, they are absorbed by the magnetic shielding, thus protecting the sensitive electronic we are building these shields to protect.
What industries do you serve the most in this space? What are common hydroforming requests from these industries?
Aerospace and defense continue to be the most common industries we serve with the main request being to shield Fiber Optic Gyros (FOG) on guidance systems for subs, ships, munitions, or other similar applications.
Are there other industries you’d like to expand in and hope to with this new machine?
We hope to build out a more robust book of business for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical and Commercial industries, while also breaking into the Automotive Industry with this new machine.
What excites you about the future of MuShield? What else should customers look forward to?
MuShield continues to enjoy steady growth by re-investing in ourselves. Our strategy is to continue to stay on the cutting edge by bringing in the latest technology to streamline our manufacturing processes, while also increasing our capabilities, but it doesn’t end with the shop floor. We ensure that our cybersecurity protection and quality continue to be top notch as well. The manufacturing industry has certainly made both of those aspects of our business paramount, and we want to ensure that both are top notch.
The Mushield Company
9 Ricker Avenue
Londonderry, New Hampshire 03053
Phone: 603-666-4433
Toll Free: 888-669-3539
www.mushield.com
