Where Did the Deep Drawing Process Start?

The process of deep drawing metals to create products is rapidly becoming one of the premier methods of manufacturing. The low cost, high production speeds, and excellent finished quality of the parts has made the deep draw process a popular choice for design engineers. Most definitely the deep drawing process is well-known today, but where did it all begin?

Like many other advancements in technology the deep draw process began simply enough, as the brain-child of one man who needed a better method of producing his products.

It was the mid 1800’s, and the American industrial boom had just begun. In the city of Waterbury, Connecticut, a local man well known and respected for his mechanical skills named Eli Manville opened the Eli Manville Company. Along with his brother Frank, Eli used his knowledge of machinery to invent several new processes that would become pivotal in the industrial race against England. Machines such as the “Four Slide”, and the “Hendey Planer and Shaper” were two of his designs from this period.

Due to the increasingly popular use of gas lighting, brass fixtures were in high demand. Following this industrial trend, the Eli Manville Company specialized in the creation of a wide variety of brass products such as tubes and lamps, as well as many other brass products.

In the later part of 1880, Eli Manville began production of small brass eyelets to be used in such products as boots, canvasses, and corsets. He soon realized that the current technology of producing eyelets was simply too small and cumbersome to be competitive in the marketplace. To address this, he invented what is generally accepted to be the very first transfer press, which became synonymous with the term “eyelet machine”.

The transfer press opened up entirely new and unexplored possibilities in manufacturing. As new tooling and materials were developed the eyelet machine became more and more capable, producing a wide array of products at previously unachievable speeds and with a quality and accuracy that the industry had never thought possible.

Years later, the Eli Manville Company was sold by Eli’s son, Bob. The new company, the Waterbury Ferrell Company, kept many of the traditions alive and well, including the transfer press. Over the years the eyelet process was refined and developed, finally becoming what we now know today as the deep drawing process.