When designing your parts with an engineer (Walt is ours on staff), he or she may use some of the following terms:
Assembly: Component or end item comprising of a number of parts (subassemblies) put together to perform a specific function.
Blanking: Process of cutting or punching of a piece of metal into a desired shape.
Brazing: Method of joining pieces of metal by heating them with a flame. Similar to soldering but requires much higher temperature.
Extruding: Method in which a softened blank of a metal material is forced through a shaped metal piece or die to produce a continuous ribbon of the formed product.
Finishing: Treating a surface with machining or polishing. Finish includes brightness, color, and texture.
Heat treating: Heating metal to a certain temperature and then cooling in a particular manner to alter its internal structure for obtaining desired degree of brittleness, hardness, or softness.
Plating: Process in which metal is deposited on a metallic surface.
Rust proofing: Coating with a substance that prevents rusting.
Stamping: Forming metal coils or strips into shapes (blanks, embosses, and bends, for example) using a press (a single operation or a series of stages).
Swaging: Altering the dimensions of an item using dies into which the item is forced.
Welding: Joining together metal pieces or parts by heating the surfaces to the point of melting using a blowtorch, electric arc, or other means, and uniting them by pressing or hammering, for example.
Source: BusinessDictionary.com
Assembly: Component or end item comprising of a number of parts (subassemblies) put together to perform a specific function.
Blanking: Process of cutting or punching of a piece of metal into a desired shape.
Brazing: Method of joining pieces of metal by heating them with a flame. Similar to soldering but requires much higher temperature.
Extruding: Method in which a softened blank of a metal material is forced through a shaped metal piece or die to produce a continuous ribbon of the formed product.
Finishing: Treating a surface with machining or polishing. Finish includes brightness, color, and texture.
Heat treating: Heating metal to a certain temperature and then cooling in a particular manner to alter its internal structure for obtaining desired degree of brittleness, hardness, or softness.
Plating: Process in which metal is deposited on a metallic surface.
Rust proofing: Coating with a substance that prevents rusting.
Stamping: Forming metal coils or strips into shapes (blanks, embosses, and bends, for example) using a press (a single operation or a series of stages).
Swaging: Altering the dimensions of an item using dies into which the item is forced.
Welding: Joining together metal pieces or parts by heating the surfaces to the point of melting using a blowtorch, electric arc, or other means, and uniting them by pressing or hammering, for example.
Source: BusinessDictionary.com