NASA aerospace manufacturing just got another tooling signal: Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Boeing finished a nearly two-ton Stamp Form Die for NASA’s Hi-Rate Composite Aircraft Manufacturing (HiCAM) project — printed with wire-arc additive manufacturing instead of traditional casting and machining alone.

Published September 21, 2026 by ORNL, the mold stands about 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. It was built on ORNL’s Arc-1 system over roughly eight weeks, then finished at Baker Industries in Michigan (annealing, rib removal, and remaining fabrication to Boeing requirements). The tool will support thermoplastic composite stamp forming for aircraft structures under HiCAM, the NASA effort aimed at raising composite airframe production rates toward metal-like cadence.

Why the process matters for shops watching aerospace tooling

• Multi-metal WAAM put mild steel in structural regions and stainless on the working surface for corrosion resistance and dimensional stability.
• Conformal cooling channels follow the mold contour instead of straight drilled holes, improving heat and cool cycles during stamp forming.
• Warping was the hard problem. Temporary support ribs plus 32 simulation iterations kept the printed shape within a few millimeters of design before finish work.
• Boeing framed the project as a U.S. industrial-base play: small and large suppliers in the chain, with Lincoln Electric / Baker Industries on the WAAM tooling side under a CRADA with ORNL.

HiCAM’s broader target is faster composite fuselage and wing production for future transports — including demos of large structures later in the decade. A two-ton printed die does not replace every forge or five-axis cell, but it shows primes are funding new tooling paths that still need inspection, finishing, fixturing, and build-to-print partners when programs scale.

What small manufacturers should watch: when primes invest in high-rate composite tooling, RFQs for brackets, fittings, fixtures, and secondary machining often follow. Buyers still filter on print fidelity, material know-how, and honest lead times — whether the primary tool was cast, machined, or printed.

Sources: Oak Ridge National Laboratory news release, “Partnership between ORNL, Boeing advances manufacturing for aircraft parts” (Sep 21, 2026); NASA Hi-Rate Composite Aircraft Manufacturing (HiCAM) project overview.