About Me
Hi. My name is Girish Shah.
I have been a manufacturer of sheet metal stampings in the automotive industry since 1996.
A graduate Mechanical Engineer and a Product Designer by academic training, I began my professional career as a Product Designer way back in 1990.
My professional responsibilities would require me to interact with stamping die makers, in addition to designing products and their components. I would have to spend a lot of time with die makers in order to ensure that the dies were made to conform to part prints.
It was then that I became interested in stamping die design and die making. I found out that die design and die making were in good alignment with my background in product design and mechanical engineering.
Later, in 1994, when I began my entrepreneurial journey in my hometown, I was exposed to practical aspects such as cold rolled sheets, stamping presses, dies, and stamping processes.
Because there was no support available for die maintenance in the town, I had to make frequent errands to an industrially developed town 190 miles (300 km) away! This got me seriously thinking about the idea of looking after die maintenance in my shop.
I bought a decent book on stamping die design, some tools, and some die steel. I had a lathe and a drill press. And I began to experiment with die design and die making , much like a DIY guy.
Initially, there were a lot of failures. But I was learning from what worked and what didn’t, comparing findings with the information in the book and retrying. I struggled a lot, but my background in Engineering and Design helped me get clarity on die design and die making.
I have always insisted on designing and making my stamping dies. I have designed and built over 400 small and big stamping dies of most types. I have built stamping dies for some customers as well.
In my spare time, I like to read non-fiction; sing Bollywood songs; paint with water colors and write on creativity on ‘Quora’.
I live with my wife, and I have two sons pursuing careers in scientific research in the US.
I have known for a long time that there’s a dearth of resources on an actionable body of knowledge about stamping die design. Beginners, hobbyists, and laymen are put off by currently available scholarly content on the subject.
This blog sincerely attempts to make stamping die design easy for the uninitiated.
The possibility of simplifying something complex is so exciting!
Email: stampingdesignblog@gmail.com
