Copper

Copper Machined Parts

Benefits of Using Copper as your Machined Parts Material

Copper is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Therefore, copper machined parts are known for their non-sparking properties, corrosion resistance and is the best electrical conductor with a relatively low cost. In addition, copper parts have high ductility, excellent joining and plating characteristics. They can be plated with electroless nickel and gold for example which help with the corrosion resistance. Another benefit is that copper has non-magnetic properties which are important in some designs. Fun fact about copper is that it is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form, meaning you can find copper our in nature and use it without any chemical treatments needing to be done beforehand.

There are a few downsides to copper because it is a soft malleable metal, it is not as strong compared to other options. We recommend that when our customers are looking for strength that they consider brass. Brass has almost the same conductivity but with the addition of zinc, brass is much stronger than copper.

Industries that Use Brass Machined Parts

Due to copper’s excellent conductivity and malleability, it is commonly used in the aerospace and commercial electronic industries, as well as in defense and military projects. For example, for our commercial electronic customers, we make copper connectors and fittings.

SWISS Lathe

Our SWISS Lathe capabilities are a great option for customers who want to use copper for their machined components. This is because it is resistant to corrosion and also has thermal conductivity properties. Popular engineering applications include hydraulic tubing and valves. At M&R Engineering we have over 20 machines available with a wide variety of electrical connectors. We have run parts smaller than 1/8 of an inch up to parts ¾ of an inch with close tolerances.

Contact us for a quote.