Staking is ideal for assembling plastic parts. It’s quick and inexpensive. It can join dissimilar materials. It eliminates the cost of fasteners and adhesives, and it allows engineers to loosen the tolerances for molded parts.
In staking, a part with one or more holes in it is slipped over corresponding posts on a base part held in a fixture. Then, a tool mounted on a press comes down, deforms the posts and traps the top part tightly against the base. The tool applies energy to the posts to melt the plastic. The process is used to assemble small products, such as printer cartridges, and large parts, such as automotive interior components.