Known for its high ductility and excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, copper is a popular material for applications ranging from rocket parts to electrical components.
However, many precision machine shops avoid working with this material. Copper is exceptionally soft, which creates challenges that make it difficult to machine:
Copper is hard to hold onto and can pull out of the workholding easily.
Copper tends to gum up and stick to cutting tools, so special coated tooling is required to machine this material effectively.
Fortunately, Focused on Machining never shies away from machining challenging materials. As demand for copper machining services increases, you can trust our aerospace machine shop to get the job done.
Copper: A Highly Conductive Material
Copper strikes a good balance between malleability and strength and possesses high corrosion resistance. But the property most sought after is its high electrical and thermal conductivity. In fact, copper is one of the most electrically and thermally conductive metals on the planet, second only to silver.
Capable of drawing heat away from other surfaces, copper is a great material for parts that will be housed near parts that generate heat. Many of our customers seek copper machining services for parts used in rocket builds—particularly engine components.
Grades of copper
Copper is available in various grades that fall under six categories: coppers (i.e., commercially pure coppers), dilute copper alloys, brasses, bronzes, copper-nickel alloys, and nickel-silver alloys. We commonly work with copper 101 and copper 110.
Copper 101 has no oxygen, making it highly electrically and thermally conductive and immune to hydrogen embrittlement at high temperatures.
Copper 110 has high electrical and thermal conductivity, good corrosion resistance, and is compatible with hot and cold working processes.
Why Choose Focused on Machining for Copper Machining Services
Focused on Machining has overcome the challenges associated with copper machining to provide superior copper machining services.
The right workholding
To prevent workholding issues, we use jaws designed to bite into the material. In fact, when quoting copper parts, we add extra material so we can use these jaws. As a result, customers get higher-quality parts.
The right tooling
Our commitment to mastering challenging materials yields excellent outcomes for our customers. Through our own trial and error, we’ve learned the best tooling, tooling coatings, and machine settings to use when machining copper parts.
The right suppliers
Because copper is a rare earth metal, supply can be limited. Fortunately, we have a wide network of material suppliers and excel at sourcing copper on behalf of our customers.
While it’s difficult for any shop to achieve precision tolerances when machining copper, we consistently hold standard tolerances of +/- 0.005” for copper parts. We are also capable of achieving high surface finishes, which is necessary for copper port parts requiring clean, flat surfaces for sealing. And if you need finishing services for your copper parts, we can coordinate options like electroless nickel plating and gold plating.
Request a Quote from Our Aerospace Machine Shop
When requesting a quote for copper machining services, we recommend planning ahead to account for the extra time that may be required to source your material. Due to sourcing challenges, it could take a few days for us to find the material you requested and a few additional days for us to receive it.
Keep in mind that not all grades of copper are readily available. Talk to us about your project, and we’ll gladly help you find the exact material you want or a comparable alternative.