Every fabrication shop has that one process. The one that’s been running the same way for years. The one nobody thinks about anymore because it simply works.
Drill presses run all day. Operators tap threads. Bolts get installed. Parts ship on time. Customers are happy. Why change anything?
Walk into any shop across the country and there’s a good chance someone is drilling through plate steel, burning through bits, managing cutting fluids, and repeating the same sequence they’ve done a thousand times before.
It works. But working and being efficient are two entirely different things.
What Gets Overlooked
Traditional drilling and tapping operations carry weight that doesn’t always show up in obvious places.
Tooling costs accumulate quietly. Drill bits dull and break. Taps snap. Cutting fluids need constant replenishment and proper disposal. Time disappears in small increments. Positioning the drill. Running the bit through. Clearing chips. Switching to the tap. Cleaning threads. It’s a rhythm measured in minutes, not seconds.
Floor space fills up with drill presses, tapping equipment, tool storage, and workbenches. Space that could house revenue generating equipment sits occupied by preparatory processes.
Consistency fluctuates. Different operators have different techniques. Fatigue sets in during long shifts. Tool wear introduces variation. The end result might meet specifications, but the path to get there varies every time.
A Different Approach Entirely
Stud welding eliminates the entire sequence. No drilling. No tapping. No threading. No bolting.
A threaded stud gets positioned on the base material. The equipment fires. The stud fuses to the plate in seconds. Move to the next location. Repeat.
Set the parameters once for a given stud size and material thickness. Every subsequent weld replicates those exact conditions. The equipment doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t develop inconsistent habits. It doesn’t need years of training to operate effectively.
New operators learn the system in hours, not weeks. The consumables are the studs themselves and occasionally a welding tip. No drill bits to stock, no taps to replace, no cutting fluids to manage.
The base material stays intact. Because there’s no hole drilled completely through the plate, structural integrity remains uncompromized. When production volume increases, one operator can oversee multiple welding systems. The footprint stays compact.
Why Shops Keep Drilling
Familiarity is powerful. Drilling and tapping is known. The process is visible and tangible. There’s comfort in that predictability.
Information gaps persist. Many shops simply don’t know stud welding exists as an option. They’ve been drilling because that’s what the previous shop manager did, and the one before that. Nobody ever presented an alternative.
Davis Stud Welding encounters this regularly. A shop will be running a process that costs multiples of what it should, not because they’ve evaluated alternatives and chosen the more expensive route, but because they never knew there was a choice to make.
When the Math Changes
Demonstration eliminates ambiguity. Bring actual production parts. Run them through the stud welding process. See the cycle time. Check the weld strength. Calculate the material savings. Compare the labour requirements.
When a shop can see their specific parts being processed in a fraction of the usual time, with fewer consumables, using less skilled labour, the conversation shifts from theoretical to practical very quickly.
The shops that make the transition typically wish they’d done it sooner. Not because their old process was failing, but because they recognise how much resource was being consumed unnecessarily.
What Makes Sense
Stud welding isn’t universal. Some applications genuinely need through bolts. Some production volumes are too low to justify the equipment investment.
But for shops running repeat production, working with plate materials, or facing labour challenges, the technology offers measurable advantages.
The most expensive manufacturing decision is often the one that never gets reconsidered. Processes continue because they’ve always continued. Nobody has time to evaluate alternatives.
Contact Davis Stud Welding to schedule a demonstration using your actual production parts. Sometimes the best process improvement is the one you didn’t know existed.