Chemical etching (also called photo etching) is an excellent choice for a wide range of design and applications. This process offers tight tolerances and a long list of available materials and thicknesses. It also offers many advantages for manufacturing thin metal parts, including accuracy, low cost
tooling, burr free parts unlike stamping, inexpensive prototyping as well as no physical or chemical alterations such as hardness or strength.

StenTech has over 20 years of chemical experience in the manufacturing of close-tolerance metal parts. Today, chemical milling is used to manufacture parts in all areas of the industry, from metal ornaments to aerospace applications.

StenTech offers design, tooling and manufacturing of metal parts with several methods available such as Chemical Milling, Electroforming, Laser cutting, Machined and Stamping.

A secondary process (or additional process) such as plating, forming, electro-polishing and marking are also available.

Benefits:

• Fast and flexible tooling complete in hours


• Inexpensive: Replace convention steel tools and dies


• Tight Tolerance and complexity made simple: Chemical milling offers tight and very consistent tolerance as there is no wear and tear on the photo tool. Complex parts are made simple, accurate and free of burrs.


• Properties unaltered : Material properties are unaltered and causing no mechanical stresses, deformation or change in grain structure on metals


• Combined process: May be combined with Electroforming and laser-cutting to produce highly complicated designs. Bend lines enable shielding enclosures to be formed easily


• Bend lines : Half etch lines on chemically milled parts helps hand form the parts easily


• Half etching : Can etch / mark lines, logos, text, part number on the metal parts


• Tabs: external tabs, internal tabs and recess tabs are possible depending on the requirement through which small parts are held in a sheet for secondary process

• Fast and flexible tooling complete in hours
• Inexpensive : Replace convention steel tools and dies
• Tight Tolerance and complexity made simple: Chemical milling offers tight tolerance and very consistent as there is no wear and tear on the photo tool. Complex parts are made simple, accurate and free of burrs.