Where do TMS Products End up?
Toledo Metal Spinning Company has played a vital role in American manufacturing since its founding in 1929. Located in Toledo, Ohio, where the original facility still houses its metal forming and fabrication machinery, processes, and 45 employees, it is a legacy of precision and reliability.
One thing that makes TMS valuable is not only its ISO 9001:2015 certification, but its two major forming paths: in-stock standard parts ready to ship, or fully custom, build-to-print opportunities.
Metal spun, deep drawn, hydroformed, rolled and seam welded, and machined metal parts are in every industry. Food processing, industrial equipment, transportation, aerospace, and commercial products are just a few areas where most buyers don’t know where their parts come from.
Three Paths
Standard Metal Products
TMS maintains a line of in-stock funnels and cones, cups and pans, and lids that are available for immediate online purchase one to two day lead times, no quoting required. Industrial stainless steel cones are the flagship product at TMS, available in a range of standard sizes and cone angles. Made from 304 and 316 stainless steel, these are preformed to standard dimensions and ready to ship. Stainless steel cups and pans are also available in a variety of diameters and depths. Flat lids, beaded lids, and domed lids are manufactured to fit corresponding funnels or cups, rounding out the stock lineup.
Made-to-Order Metal Forming
TMS offers a variety of made-to-order standard shapes with tooling already in-house, documented, and ready to run. These products include Hemispheres, domes, sanitary funnels, double-walled funnels, specialty funnels, and cylinders. These products are all formed to order in the material, dimension, and finish the required by the final application.
Because TMS has an extensive library of tooling in-house across standard geometries, custom variation on these shapes are often achievable quickly and at a lower cost than starting with new tooling. A funnel with a non-standard outlet diameter, cylinder with a specific flange, or hemisphere in an uncommon alloy is often closer to an off-the-shelf lead time than expected. Custom funnels, pressure vessels, enclosures, and transition pieces are among the most frequently requested variations, fully engineered to the application while leveraging existing tooling as a starting point.
Fully Custom Metal Fabrications
TMS build to print capabilities span through every market and material that the facility works with including stainless-steel, aluminum, carbon steel, brass, copper, Inconel, titanium, and other specialty alloys. With in-house tool design and prototyping, TMS manages the entire process in-house. First article inspection reports are available for customers who require dimensional verification before the production release. For programs that evolve over time, TMS maintains tooling and process documentation so that repeat orders run to the same specs.
Industry Deep Dive
Food Processing & Coffee Equipment
Sanitary stainless-steel funnels, lids, cups, kettles, and cylinders from TMS find their way into filling lines, coffee brewing and roasting equipment, dairy processing systems, packaging systems, and bulk ingredient handling. Parts are fabricated from 304 and 316 stainless steel with sanitary-grade finishes and low-porosity, crevice-free welds. Where design allows, these applications are formed as seamless, one-piece components that eliminate weld points entirely and simplify clean-out.
Metal fabrication for the food and beverage industry in the U.S.A. is held to the most demanding standards in manufacturing. Surface finish, dimensional accuracy, and weld integrity are non-negotiables when a part comes into direct contact with food and beverage products.
For nearly a century, TMS has built and delivered custom sanitary components to the food and beverage OEMs, taking parts from prototype to full production without changing suppliers or losing tolerances along the way.
Medical & Pharmaceutical
Medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical equipment builders, and bioprocessing OEMs utilize applications like sanitary funnels and cones for filling equipment, custom cylinders for sterile processing systems, mixing vessel components, and deep drawn housings for medical devices and diagnostic equipment. Both metal spinning and deep drawing product smooth, crevice-free interior surfaces without the need for grinding.
TMS applies sanitary finishes and polishes to achieve specified Ra surface finish values, and offer low-porosity welds and seamless one-piece construction where geometry allows.
Filling Equipment and Packaging Machinery
Funnels, cones, domes, and transition sections are seamlessly formed at TMS. Transfer tubes and cylinder sections are rolled, seam welded, and planished for increased strength and durability.
Precision metal components are necessary and relied upon to keep product moving accurately and consistently down the line. TMS fabricates custom funnels, discharge cones, fill funnels, and transition pieces for auger fillers, volumetric fillers, liquid filling machines, and powder packaging systems. Whether the application handles dry granules, powders, or liquids, the geometry and angle of the hopper and cone directly affect flow rate, accuracy, and line efficiency.
Custom cylinders, domed lids, and seamless cups from TMS are also used inside packaging machinery as housings, guides, and structural components. These are all parts that need tight tolerances, consistent wall thicknesses, and repeatable dimensions across production runs.
Standard conical funnels and seamless cups are available in stock, ready to ship for immediate installation. These applications are available in a variety of volumes and diameters, with the option to be fully customized for specific needs or industry requirements.
Bulk Handling Equipment & Heavy Duty Material Handling
Heavy-gauge hoppers, transition cones, cylinders for conveyors, bucket elevators, or auger systems are formed on the larger equipment at TMS. Standard products are formed from 14-gauge stainless steel, but when the application demands heavier wall thickness, higher-strength alloys, or tighter dimensional tolerances, TMS has the equipment and experience to fabricate to spec. Bulk material handling components experience abrasion, impact loading, and constant product flow, requiring parts that hold their shape and integrity over long production cycles without premature wear or failure.
For bulk handling applications and equipment, standard conical hoppers and seamless cups are available from stock in a variety of sizes, with full custom fabrication available for application-specific designs. In-stock products ship quickly to support tight installation schedules, while custom fabrication moves through engineering, fab processes, and finishing under one roof. No subcontracting, handoffs, or delays waiting on outside vendors.
Plastics, Extrusion, Pneumatic Equipment
The plastics processing and pneumatic conveying industries are two of TMS’ most established markets, with tens of thousands of components shipped annually into injection molding facilities, resin drying, conveying systems, and central material handling installations across the U.S.
Seamless spun hoppers, standard cones, and cups are used as resin dryers, material loaders, and feed funnels on plastic pellet conveying and blending systems. The seamless and smooth interior surface that metal spinning produces is especially well-suited to these applications. Pelletized resin is able to flow freely without bridging or hang-up, due to interior weld seams that disrupt flow. Another advantage is the lack of wear points, due to the seamless form of the funnels and cones.
In pneumatic conveying equipment, specifically roll-formed custom cylinders and precision-formed transition pieces, consistent inside diameter and smooth interior walls are critical to maintaining conveying velocity and minimizing pressure drop across the system. Air leaks that occur in transition points can be a persistent problem in pneumatic conveying lines. Cones and funnels are seamless, and TMS cylinders are rolled, seam welded, and planished, ensuring they support a leak-free assembly with repeatable performance across long production runs.
Applications are available from stock for immediate shipment, or fabricated parts are built-to-print for application-specific designs in stainless steel, aluminum, nickel alloys, copper alloys, and carbon steel.
Heavy industry, Construction, and Industrial Equipment
TMS supplies custom metal applications to some of the most demanding industrial applications in U.S. manufacturing – HVAC systems, abrasive and blast equipment, oil and gas infrastructure, and heavy industrial machinery. In these industries, part failure is not an option.
In HVAC and aur handling equipment, TMS forms venturi tubes, fan inlet cones, blower housings, fan motor housings, flanges, and transition pieces used in both commercial and industrial ventilation systems. These components require consistent geometry and smooth interior surfaces to maintain airflow efficiency and reduce turbulence. Metal spinning and deep drawing are well-suited to both requirements.
In abrasive and shot blast equipment, TMS fabricates blast pot components, moisture separator housings, tank heads, pressure vessel covers, and after cooler system components. Parts in this environment face constant abrasion and pressure cycling, so wall thickness consistency and weld integrity are critical to service life.
For oil and gas applications, TMS produces pressure vessel, accumulator, and heat exchanger heads, pipeline fittings, pump components, and wellhead equipment from stainless steel, carbon steel, and copper alloys. These are applications where dimensional accuracy and material traceability matter. With TMS’ ISO 9001:2015 certification, the support and documentation requirements that oil and gas procurement teams typically require is traceable.
What sets TMS apart for heavy industrial work? Forming capacity. TMS spins stainless-steel up to 3/16” wall thickness and draws from blanks up to 48” in diameter. These are capabilities that most regional fabricators cannot match.
Sanitation and Recycling
TMS has been forming heavy-gauge, high durability metal parts for industrial and municipal applications since 1929. Wastewater, municipal water infrastructure, and industrial sanitation systems depend on durable, precisely formed metal components that will hold up under constant exposure to water, chemicals, and pressure cycling. TMS has decades of experience fabricating inlet cones, outlet reducers, flanges, cylinders, tank heads, access port and manway covers, pump housings, transition pieces, and formed covers for wet wells and water treatment.
These parts are formed and produced from stainless steel, carbon steel, and aluminum, dependent on the application, and exposure to fluids and the environment. TMS will meet material and finish specifications and requirements through metal spinning, deep drawing, rolling and seam welding, and laser cutting all in-house. Components ship complete and ready to install, no secondary vendors are necessary, with no coordination delays to the jobsite schedule.
Transportation
Transportation is one of the most technically demanding markets that TMS serves, and one of its longest-standing. Automotive, aerospace, and car wash equipment manufacturers have relied on TMS for custom metal applications for decades, across some of the most specification-driven applications in U.S. manufacturing.
The car wash industry has been one of TMS’ highest volume markets for over 30 years, and it shows in the depth of capability TMS has built around it. Stainless steel vacuum domes are among the highest-volume parts in the facility, produced using a deep draw and spin combination that TMS developed and refined specifically for this application. TMS domes outlast alternatives and holds its geometry through years of high-cycle vacuum use, and withstand environmental factors like weather. TMS also produces internal vacuum pans, nozzle heads for automatic car washing systems, stainless steel housings and structural components utilized throughout car was equipment assemblies. Car wash OEMs across the U.S. have depended on TMS as a long-term production supplier because the parts are consistent, lead times are reliable, and the volume capability is there when demand increases.
TMS has served the automotive industry for decades through producing components that fit into larger assemblies. Examples are driveshaft components, spring covers, steering wheel hubs, RV wheel covers, and structural parts for buses and specialty vehicles. The combination of deep drawing and metal spinning under one roof allows TMS to achieve geometries and wall profiles that neither process alone can produce.
For the aerospace industry, TMS produces spin-formed and deep drawn components from Inconel 625 and 718, titanium, aircraft-grade aluminum, and high-temperature stainless steel including 309. 310, 321, and 347. Every aerospace part ships with full lot traceability, inert atmosphere welding is available for porosity-critical applications, and weld coupons are provided for customer qualification.
Marine
Marine transportation and offshore oil and gas infrastructure demand components that perform reliably in some of the harshest and most extreme operating environments. With constant salt exposure, pressure extremes, vibration, and temperature variation, precision and reliability are not negotiable.
Custom components for marine vessels, submarines, offshore platforms, docking infrastructure and heavy transportation equipment include ventilation cones and ducts, exhaust transitions, pressure vessel heads, sonobuoys, navigation and instrument housings, fuel system components, deck drain funnels, and structural domes for buoys and marine monitoring components. Material selection is application-driven, and common choices are marine-grade stainless steel, aluminum alloys, copper-nickel alloys, and carbon steel. Material is often determined depending on the corrosion resistance, weight, and strength requirements of the final part.
Architecture, Lighting and Hospitality
Formed metal components are seen, touched, and judged on appearance as much as function in the architecture, lighting, and hospitality industries. Through metal spinning and polishing, the smooth and flowing geometries with consistent surface finishes are cost-effective in a way that stamping can’t match.
TMS can fabricate custom light shades, lamp reflectors, architectural domes, hemispheres, high-mast lighting components, and decorative fixtures in aluminum, stainless steel, brass, or copper. For hospitality and commercial interiors, TMS has experience with custom table tops, chair tops, and accent pieces made in short runs. Metal spinning tooling is low-cost as compared to stamping dies, making limited-run custom work economically viable, not to mention beautiful.
Aesthetic options include brushed, polished, anodized, and patinated finishes across a range of metals, where designers have flexibility and that standard fabricators cannot offer.
TMS is also the manufacturer behind Cleanline, a line of modern and sleek stainless steel commercial waste and recycling receptacles. Cleanline brings the same fabrication quality and aesthetic into architectural and commercial environments, where appearance, durability, and sanitary surface finish are of upmost importance.
Custom
Formed metal components are seen, touched, and judged on appearance as much as function in the architecture, lighting, and hospitality industries. Through metal spinning and polishing, the smooth and flowing geometries with consistent surface finishes are cost-effective in a way that stamping can’t match.
TMS can fabricate custom light shades, lamp reflectors, architectural domes, hemispheres, high-mast lighting components, and decorative fixtures in aluminum, stainless steel, brass, or copper. For hospitality and commercial interiors, TMS has experience with custom table tops, chair tops, and accent pieces made in short runs. Metal spinning tooling is low-cost as compared to stamping dies, making limited-run custom work economically viable, not to mention beautiful.
Aesthetic options include brushed, polished, anodized, and patinated finishes across a range of metals, where designers have flexibility and that standard fabricators cannot offer.
TMS is also the manufacturer behind Cleanline, a line of modern and sleek stainless steel commercial waste and recycling receptacles. Cleanline brings the same fabrication quality and aesthetic into architectural and commercial environments, where appearance, durability, and sanitary surface finish are of upmost importance.
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