Cold heading is one of two ways of making a bolt from a piece of metal. The other is through screw machining, which involves simply cutting away material from a piece of metal until you are left with a shape that you can then add threads and a head to. As you can imagine, this is a process that can result in a lot of waste, particularly if you do not make an effort to recycle some of the material that has been produced after the process. However, it’s still one of the commonest and cheapest ways of making fasteners.

On the other hand, cold heading involves forcing a piece of metal into the desired shape without taking away any material. In a way, you can think of it as a form of molding, only that you use metal instead. The major benefits of using this manufacturing method is that you will be left with very little waste material at the end.