C&W Manufacturing is a CNC machine shop in Turlock, California that machines components for the companies building data center liquid cooling and power distribution equipment: cold plate bodies and covers, coolant manifolds and distribution blocks, copper busbars and terminal blocks, fitting adapters, flanges and mounting hardware. We are a machining supplier. You or your joining vendor handle brazing, friction stir welding and pressure testing; we deliver the machined parts to the drawing, with the flatness, port threads, seal grooves and cleanliness that decide whether the assembly leaks. Prototypes through production lots, under an AS9100D quality system, established 1997.
What a thermal, mechanical or sourcing engineer needs to know first. Everything below is repeated in more depth on our services and about pages and documented on the certifications page.
Pure copper is soft and gummy: it smears, raises burrs and welds itself to the tool. Sharp polished tooling, the right temper and a deburr plan are the difference between a clean channel and a scrapped plate. Our C110 vs C101 copper guide covers which grade to specify and why.
A gasketed cold plate or a manifold port leaks at the face or the groove, not in the middle of the part. We hold the flatness and finish the seal needs and measure it. Our cold plate DFM guide covers groove, flatness and channel callouts, and the surface finish chart shows what each Ra value looks like in practice.
Straight-thread o-ring ports seal on an elastomer instead of on thread interference, which is why liquid loops prefer them to NPT. The manifold design guide compares the port standards, and our AS5202 port chart gives the aerospace port dimensions by dash size.
Fifty inches of X travel lets a rack-length manifold or busbar be machined without repositioning, which keeps port-to-port and hole-to-hole position honest along the full length.
The same shop that turns your first three cold plates can run the repeat lots. The program, fixtures and inspection plan carry over, so production parts match the ones you validated.
Material certs, first article inspection reports and CMM data come out of a quality system built for aerospace work. Tell us what the build requires in the RFQ and it ships with the parts.
No. We machine the components: plate bodies, covers, channels, manifolds, ports and fittings. We do not braze, friction stir weld or vacuum braze, and we do not currently pressure or leak test. Customers either join and test in-house or send our machined parts to their joining vendor. Gasketed and o-ring sealed designs that bolt together need no joining step, and we machine those complete to the drawing.
C110 (ETP) is the default for busbars and for cold plates that are bolted or gasketed; it has 101% IACS conductivity and is the most available grade. Specify C101 or C102 oxygen-free copper when the part will be brazed or welded in a hydrogen-bearing atmosphere, because the oxygen in C110 can cause embrittlement there. C145 tellurium copper machines far more easily, at about 93% IACS, and suits connector bodies and heavily machined electrical parts. Our C110 vs C101 guide has the numbers.
Yes. Our largest mill has 50 inches of X travel, so long distribution manifolds and busbars are machined in one setup rather than stepped along in sections.
Tin, silver and nickel plating are done by outside plating processors. When the drawing calls for plating we manage it as part of the order and the parts arrive finished; tell us the specification and thickness in the RFQ.
A STEP model and a PDF drawing with material and temper, tolerances, flatness and finish callouts on sealing and thermal faces, port thread standards, any plating, the quantity and the date you need parts. Our RFQ guide lists everything that speeds up a quote.
C&W Manufacturing is in Turlock, California, in the Central Valley. We serve equipment builders, integrators and contractors nationwide and ship across the United States.
Choosing a copper grade? Read C110 vs C101 copper. Weighing a busbar or plate blank? Use the metal weight calculator.
Send the model and drawing. We respond within one business day with price, lead time and any manufacturability notes on the design.