Hydroforming

Reinventing Bathroom Handle Design with Hydroforming

Thirty years ago, a bath rack was just a bath rack. Thanks to a booming economy, consumers have begun demanding more aesthetically-integrated designs with high-end materials. Inexpensive, “practical” metals are giving way to titanium alloys with brass finishes. Like the kitchen, the bath is evolving into new design opportunities for quality, form, and authenticity. New…
Read More

The Virtues of Hydroforming for Appliance Handles Manufacturing

Today, tubular hydroforming is not only an accepted way to produce metal appliance handles, it is often the preferred method. There are several reasons this simply make sense. For one, there are the production considerations: Hydroforming uses less material, produces parts that are lighter weight, and still maintains the stiffness and strength yielded by other, more traditional ways…
Read More

The 4 Grades of Metal to Choose from for an Appliance Stainless Steel Handle

By any count, there are over 150 grades of stainless steel available. Appliance stainless steel handle manufacturers typically use just four of these many options: 304, 439, 441, and 201 grade stainless. Below we outline the defining characteristics of each grade and discuss why and when stainless steel handle manufacturers choose one over the other.…
Read More

Trends in Kitchen Appliance Handle Manufacturing

With kitchen appliance handle design trending away from the contoured look that was favored by OEMs for more than a decade to a more commercial-kitchen, almost industrial aesthetic, different approaches to handle manufacturing are required. Whereas tubular hydroforming and tubular stamping were good fits for creating gently curved metal appliance handles that were lightweight and…
Read More

3 Ways to Manufacture Metal Appliance Handles

In our decades as a supplier of appliance parts and assemblies, we’ve found that metal appliance handles are best made using three manufacturing methods: roll forming, which is very cost effective, hydroforming, which allows for more complexity and flexibility without sacrificing strength, and tubular stamping, which combines economy, strength, and flexibility at high volumes. Here…
Read More