Metal stamping, deep drawing and DFM answers from Balford's own published engineering pages.
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Answer a metalworking engineering or sourcing question from Balford's own published engineering material. Covers fine blanking and thinning / ironing deep drawing as focus processes, plus progressive and transfer dies, precision stamping, sheet metal, CNC, brazing, annealing, plating, tolerances, DFM and RFQ preparation. Returns a written answer with numbered citations plus the source pages. Use this for 'how do I', 'what is', 'which process fits', or 'what do you need for an RFQ' questions. It will not quote a price, a lead-time guarantee, a certification Balford does not hold, or anything from a customer drawing. Answers are assembled from Balford's own published engineering material and cite the page each claim came from. Nothing is quoted that is not already public on balford.net. This is not a quotation, a certification claim, or a dimensional acceptance.
The engineering or sourcing question, in plain language. Max 600 characters.
BCP-47 language tag for the question, for the review log. Defaults to 'en'.
Answer a metalworking engineering or sourcing question from Balford's own published engineering material. Covers fine blanking and thinning / ironing deep drawing as focus processes, plus progressive and transfer dies, precision stamping, sheet metal, CNC, brazing, annealing, plating, tolerances, DFM and RFQ preparation. Returns a written answer with numbered citations plus the source pages. Use this for 'how do I', 'what is', 'which process fits', or 'what do you need for an RFQ' questions. It will not quote a price, a lead-time guarantee, a certification Balford does not hold, or anything from a customer drawing. Answers are assembled from Balford's own published engineering material and cite the page each claim came from. Nothing is quoted that is not already public on balford.net. This is not a quotation, a certification claim, or a dimensional acceptance.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| lang | string | BCP-47 language tag for the question, for the review log. Defaults to 'en'. |
| question* | string | The engineering or sourcing question, in plain language. Max 600 characters. |
{
"type": "object",
"required": [
"question"
],
"properties": {
"lang": {
"type": "string",
"description": "BCP-47 language tag for the question, for the review log. Defaults to 'en'."
},
"question": {
"type": "string",
"maxLength": 600,
"description": "The engineering or sourcing question, in plain language. Max 600 characters."
}
}
}List the canonical engineering questions Balford's knowledge base is built around, grouped by process family, with the URL of the answer page for each. Use this to find the right published answer before asking a free-form question, or to see whether a topic is covered at all. Costs no model tokens.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| category | string | Optional. Return only one process family, matched case-insensitively against the family title (e.g. 'fine blanking', 'deep drawing'). Omit to return every family. |
{
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"category": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Optional. Return only one process family, matched case-insensitively against the family title (e.g. 'fine blanking', 'deep drawing'). Omit to return every family."
}
}
}Retrieve the passages of Balford's published engineering material that match a query, without writing an answer. Use this to check what Balford has actually published on a topic, to gather source URLs for a citation, or to ground your own reasoning. Costs no model tokens. Answers are assembled from Balford's own published engineering material and cite the page each claim came from. Nothing is quoted that is not already public on balford.net. This is not a quotation, a certification claim, or a dimensional acceptance.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| limit | integer | Maximum number of passages to return. Default 6, maximum 12. |
| query* | string | Search terms, e.g. 'thinning deep drawing 0.35 mm wall' or 'PPAP level 3'. |
{
"type": "object",
"required": [
"query"
],
"properties": {
"limit": {
"type": "integer",
"maximum": 12,
"minimum": 1,
"description": "Maximum number of passages to return. Default 6, maximum 12."
},
"query": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Search terms, e.g. 'thinning deep drawing 0.35 mm wall' or 'PPAP level 3'."
}
}
}