We cut hardened tool steel, titanium and copper with a traveling wire and deionized water. No cutter force, no burrs, no heat-affected zone on your finished part. Send a DXF or STEP file and we quote within 12 hours.
These are the ones buyers send us most often when a previous supplier missed them.
Milling leaves a corner radius equal to the tool radius. If your design calls for a true 90° internal corner in a hardened die insert, the milled version will not fit. We burn the profile with a Ø0.25 mm wire so the corner lands where the drawing says it should.
A punch that measured 20.000 mm before hardening can come back at 20.030 mm. Grinding it back to size is slow and risky. Cutting the finished profile after heat treatment avoids the distortion entirely, because the material is already at final hardness.
Thin slots and fine gear teeth trap hand-deburring hours. One missed burr becomes a field failure or a rejected lot. Thermal cutting leaves an edge that usually needs no secondary operation, which removes that manual step from your routing.
A project stalls when the supplier goes quiet after the RFQ. You cannot plan tooling or book a build slot without a number. Send a drawing and we return a quotation plus DFM notes within 12 hours, and production can start within 24 hours.
Two capabilities decide whether the part comes off the machine on size.
Most shops mill a die insert soft, send it out for hardening, then grind to recover size. Every one of those steps adds a chance to lose the profile. We flip the order: heat treat first, then cut the finished contour with a traveling wire. The material is at final hardness when the geometry is created, so the number on the drawing is the number on the part.
The electrode never touches the workpiece. Discharge happens across a small gap filled with deionized water, so there is no cutting force to deflect a thin rib or a long slender punch. We routinely hold ±0.005 mm on features that a milling cutter would push out of position.
A drawing that looks clean in CAD can still be expensive to burn. A 0.2 mm radius in a deep pocket forces a smaller wire, more passes and a longer cycle. When we review your file we flag those features and tell you what the change is worth in time and cost, before you commit to a build.
You get that feedback with the quotation, not after the first article. Our engineers read the tolerance stack, check the datum scheme and confirm which features need the finishing pass. If a feature is better milled and then burned, we say so and quote it that way.
Use this to decide which process belongs on which feature.
| Feature | Better process | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hardened die insert, 58–60 HRC | Wire EDM | Cut after heat treat, no distortion |
| Sharp internal 90° corner | Wire EDM | Corner radius equals wire radius |
| Deep rib under 1 mm wide | Wire EDM | No cutting force to bend the rib |
| Large pocket, soft aluminum | CNC milling | Faster and cheaper per part |
| 3D contoured surface | CNC milling | Wire cuts a 2D profile only |
| Through slot in 100 mm plate | Wire EDM | Square corners through full depth |
| Blind pocket with floor | CNC milling | Wire cannot cut a blind floor |
| Fine gear teeth, module 0.5 | Wire EDM | Profile accuracy without a cutter |
Wire EDM rarely ships alone. These are the operations we combine with it.
2-axis profile and 4-axis taper cutting in hardened steel, carbide, titanium and copper. Maximum part length 4,000 mm.
16 simultaneous 5-axis centers for contoured surfaces, angled holes and features that wire cutting cannot reach.
27 three-axis machines, 12 four-axis mills and 16 mill-turn centers for soft-material work and pre-cutting.
Single-piece electrodes, fixtures and first articles turned around without a tooling commitment.
Anodizing, plating, powder coating, blasting and polishing, including laser marking down to 1.5 mm character height.
100% inspection before shipment with dimensional reports issued on request for every production lot.
Numbers we can commit to when we quote your part.
| Parameter | Capability | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Achievable tolerance | ±0.005 mm | On features under 100 mm |
| Fine surface finish | Ra 0.2–0.8 μm | With multiple trim passes |
| Standard finish | Ra 0.8–1.6 μm | One rough plus two trims |
| Maximum part length | 4,000 mm | Fixture dependent |
| Minimum slot width | Ø0.25 mm wire | Depth limited by flush |
| Materials | Steel, stainless, titanium, copper, carbide | Conductive materials only |
| Order quantity | 1 to 10,000+ | No minimum order quantity |
| Standard lead time | 3–5 days | After drawing release |
Three wholly-owned plants in Dongguan and Singapore, 7,600 m² of floor space and 150 technicians on staff.
Wire, mill, turn and 5-axis capacity under one roof, so a part does not travel between vendors mid-process.
Held on hardened and thin-wall features where cutter deflection would normally push the part out of spec.
Raw material check, in-process monitoring and final inspection before anything leaves the floor.
A price and a DFM note back within 12 hours, with production able to start inside 24 hours.
ISO 9001:2015, IATF 16949:2016, ISO 13485:2016 and ISO 27001:2022, covering quality and data handling.
Hardened alloy brackets and fixture plates with square internal corners and no recast layer left on the edge.
Stamping dies, trim dies and hardened inserts cut after heat treatment so the closing profile matches the drawing.
Surgical tool blanks and implant fixtures in stainless and titanium, cut burr-free in small lots without tooling.
Gear teeth, splines and long guide rails burned in hardened stock up to 4,000 mm in a single setup.
The material has to conduct electricity. Hardened tool steel, stainless steel, titanium, copper, brass, carbide and Inconel all work. Plastics, ceramics and glass do not.
Within the conductive group, hardness is not a limit. A 60 HRC die insert cuts at the same feed as a soft one, because the removal mechanism is spark erosion rather than a cutting edge.
Milling wins on large soft pockets and 3D surfaces. Wire wins when the geometry or the material rules the cutter out.
Two cases come up constantly: a true sharp internal corner, and a hardened part that would move during heat treatment if it were cut soft. If your feature needs either, the milled route costs more once you add grinding or a second setup.
No. The wire is a continuous loop and has to pass through the part, so every cut goes all the way through the thickness.
Blind pockets, counterbores and floors are milled, then we burn the through features. We will tell you which is which at the quotation stage.
We hold ±0.005 mm on features under 100 mm where the drawing requires it. Thin ribs are one place where the process has a real advantage, because nothing pushes against the part during the cut.
Very thin sections can still move from residual stress released in the parent stock. If the wall is under 0.5 mm, tell us early and we will suggest a stress-relief step or a different cut sequence.
Our smallest wire is Ø0.25 mm, so slots near 0.3 mm are practical. The limit is not the wire diameter alone.
Deep narrow slots need good flushing to carry debris out of the gap. Past a certain depth-to-width ratio the cut slows down or the wire breaks, so we set the limit per part rather than promising one number for everything.
A STEP, DXF or DWG file, the material and hardness, the tolerances that matter, and the quantity. A PDF drawing with a datum scheme helps more than a 3D model alone.
If some dimensions are cosmetic rather than functional, say so. It changes the number of trim passes and can shorten the cycle noticeably.
Uploads stay secure and confidential, and we can sign an NDA before you send the file. Our ISO 27001:2022 certification covers how we handle and store customer data.
If you prefer, send a stripped model with the critical features only and we will quote from that.
Standard production ships in 3–5 days. Quotes come back within 12 hours with DFM notes, and production can start within 24 hours of your approval.
For a first article on a hardened die program, plan for one extra inspection step. We would rather flag that up front than surprise you at the shipping date.
Upload your file and we return a quotation with DFM feedback within 12 hours. No minimum order quantity, and an NDA is available before you send anything.
12-hour quote100% inspectionNo minimum orderNDA on request
Trusted by engineers and manufacturers worldwide
Upload your 3D model or 2D drawing and get a quotation with a free DFM analysis. Maximum processing size 4,000 mm.
CNC Metals 13 grades
CNC Plastics 10 grades
Machines & processes 12 options
Surface & post-processing 10 options
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