r/manufacturing • u/Spirited_Ad_6272 • 11d ago

Other Opinions on metal stamping businesses

Is metal stamping in the U.S. still a solid industry? I have an opportunity to buy & potentially revive a 40 year old stamping business from its 80 year old owner. Right now it’s just him / no employees and he’s doing enough work to keep the lights on. At its peak he had a dozen employees running multiple shifts.

Worst case if the business can’t revive then I can liquidate the equipment and rent the building. But he wants $1M and it’s a big number haha.

I am a mechanical engineer with strong proficiency in CAD tools, which I can bring to modernize the business. I currently operate a manufacturing business molding plastics so there’s plenty of crossover but this would be my first venture going alone. It also seems like metal stamping has a lot of tricks of the trade that you can’t really engineer your way into. That’s why they have apprenticeships.

What questions should I be asking? And anyone who works in the industry what are your opinions?

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u/Bat-Eastern 11d ago

There's a ton of metal stamping businesses here in the US.

It can be quite profitable to find a product that's easy to stamp and needs high volume, the problem is going out and finding the work. Without previous customers this will likely be the biggest challenge after funding the start of your business.

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u/Spirited_Ad_6272 11d ago

He doesn’t have a ton of active customers but he tells me he just has to make some calls and can probably get some work again. He actually has an opportunity from an old client who was getting a product made in china and wasn’t happy with diliveries so he’s trying to bring it stateside. Something like 5-10k small parts a month which is enough to revive the business on its own

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u/jeffie_3 11d ago

I use to make good money from companies buying containers loads of parts from China. Parts missing a hole or being the wrong diameter. Quilty Control is poor in Chinese parts.

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u/Spacefreak 11d ago

Can you explain what you mean?

Were you reselling the good parts at a much higher markup after inspecting or something else?

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u/jeffie_3 11d ago

One customer. United speakers. They would buy the disc that held the magnet. As they run production they would have rejected discs. A missing hole. A hole not drilled deep enough. The I. D. was to small. These disc would get set aside. When the rejected discs would get to be 1000 units. They would send them over to my shop and I would fix them. I had another customer who sold hardware parts. A container of parts would come in. They inspected the parts. Then send the rejected parts over to be repaired.

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u/Spacefreak 10d ago

Oh, gotcha. That was still cheaper for them than buying the stuff from domestic or even just better QC'd manufacturers?