Capabilities

Full-Service Powder Metal Manufacturing

Symmco is a powder metal manufacturer that produces custom-engineered components as well as stock products, engineered in-house from tool design through finished part.

Find Your Part See the Process

5–750

Ton press range

Core capabilities

Stock product families

USA

Made in the USA

Engineering Expertise, Start to Finish

The company's engineering expertise, innovation and relentless commitment to excellence serve as a testament to its dedication to achieve unsurpassed satisfaction for both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and distributors across the United States and abroad.

Offering a diverse spectrum of materials, engineering and manufacturing capabilities, Symmco has the versatility to deliver the custom solutions your industry demands.

Dorst compacting press at Symmco's powder metal facility

The Powder Metal Process

Every Symmco part follows the same proven path, from a block of tooling to a finished, precision component. Tap any step to dive deeper.

Press fleet and part envelope

Symmco compacts parts on 39 presses split between its two plants, and because both plants produce, every part is made in the USA at Symmco's Pennsylvania and Tennessee facilities. The Sykesville plant runs 36 presses from 5-ton to 750-ton with mechanical, hydraulic and electric drives, while the Surgoinsville plant runs 3, from a 300-ton electric to 500-ton hydraulic press.

Symmco compaction press fleet by plant: number of presses, tonnage range, drive types and multi-level capability.
Plant	Presses	Tonnage range	Drive types	Multi-level capability
Sykesville, Pennsylvania	36	5-ton to 750-ton	Mechanical, hydraulic and electric	Dorst and Osterwalder presses, up to 7 levels
Surgoinsville, Tennessee	3	300-ton electric to 500-ton hydraulic	Electric and hydraulic	Dorst presses, up to 7 levels
Both plants	39	5 to 750 tons	Dorst presses in both plants run up to 7 levels; Osterwalder presses in Pennsylvania also run 7 levels using mechanical and hydraulic technologies

How small, and how large

At the small end, Symmco presses parts as small as 0.050" outside diameter and 0.050" overall length, and at the other extreme it produces parts up to 6.00" wide, 12.00" long and 1.00" thick. Weight is not a constraint in itself, because it follows from the density of the material and the size of the part, so the question to ask about a new component is whether its geometry fits the press and the die rather than what it weighs.

How tight a tolerance

Parts that need a closer dimension than the sintered part carries are re-pressed in a sizing die, and Symmco holds sizing tolerances as tight as 0.001" where the application calls for it. The sizing and coining page explains what that operation does to a bearing and how the catalogue's sized dimensions should be read.

Sintering furnaces

Symmco runs 8 sintering furnaces at temperatures up to 2250°F, under hydrogen and nitrogen atmospheres, with belt widths from 8 to 24 inches depending on the furnace. The newest of them provides sinter hardening through a hyper-cool system that mists parts with an internal water system after the hot zone, shocking the material into hardening, and copper infiltration and sinter brazing are available alongside conventional sintering of bronze, iron and stainless parts.

Furnace details and processes

Secondary operations, in-house and managed

On its own lathes and mills Symmco performs drilling, tapping, countersinks, turning outside and inside diameters, honing, roller burnishing and cross holes, and its in-house finishing services cover dry tumble, media tumble (multiple media types), wet tumble, rust-preventive dip, oil impregnation, assembly and specialty packaging, while the Tennessee plant adds grit blasting. Managed through outside partners rather than performed in-house are steam treating, heat treating, plating, surface grinding and resin impregnation, which Symmco handles through its partner network.

In-house secondary Outside secondary