West Salem Tool & Die maintained and deepened its pool of experienced, talented toolmakers over the decades. As a result, we remain competitive and ready to equip manufacturers across North America with custom tooling. This expertise, along with our growing machining capacity, are our core strengths.
EDM, Lathe, Precision CNC Machining
There’s almost nothing we can’t machine, so we make most things in-house. Since the beginning of the business, West Salem Tool & Die has been focused on making precision industrial tooling.
Custom Tooling Design
We use Solidworks and Mastercam to design our tooling. We provide top-down design in which a customer is getting a whole machine, and we provide tooling solutions to retrofit existing machines.
Our tooling business connects with much of the other work we do in custom machines, tube sizers, tube punches, fixtures and more. To see our tooling in action on those machines, check out our youtube channel.
Most tooling is made from the highest quality hardened steel, because “tooling” is a loose term often used to refer to the business end of any bit of equipment, where the most wear and tear happens. These steels, known as tool steels, come in a wide range of grades and classes. A2 tool steel is very tough, for example, while D2 holds a great edge. Toolmakers heat-treat their tool steel after machining it to shape in order to harden it. Something new designers often must learn is that heat treating warps the shape of a steel – and the less blocky the object, the more it warps. That’s why tooling often (but not always) has a blocky look to it.
At West Salem Tool we do our heat-treating in house to reduce lead times.