Oil & Gas · Valves · Flanges · Pipe · Wellhead · Cylinders
Dot peen systems for valve bodies, flanges, drill pipe, wellhead equipment and gas cylinders. Marks that stay readable after blasting, galvanizing and twenty years in the field.
An oil and gas marking machine puts permanent identification into a metal part — serial number, heat number, size and pressure class — deep enough to stay readable through coating, service and inspection. All five below are dot peen, because that is what pressure-containing parts in this industry are usually marked with. Each is shown with a mark it produced, so you can judge the result and not just the specification.
A note on the depth figures below. A dot peen machine sets impact force, not depth — how deep that force goes depends on the hardness of the metal it strikes. The figures here are the top of each range and assume softer steel; on heat-treated grades expect less. Tell us the material and grade and we will tell you what to expect, from having marked most energy-grade steels many times over.
HS-DP200-R · ROTARY DOT PEEN
The workhorse for this industry. A rotary fixture holds parts up to 200 kg and turns them under the head, so depth stays constant around a circumference. It also marks flat faces, which is why one machine covers valve bodies, flanges and pipe alike.
WHAT IT MARKS
Valve bodies, flanges, steel pipe, fittings and couplings — serial numbers, heat numbers matching the MTR, size and pressure class, material designation, standard reference and flow direction arrows. Character height to 6 mm and above, as API 6D requires for NPS 2 and larger.
HS-PE01-P · Pneumatic dot peen
Compressed air drives the pin harder than a motor can, so this is the machine for marks that have to survive sandblasting and heavy coating. A seven-inch touchscreen is built into the casing — no laptop on the shop floor, no cables to break.
WHAT IT MARKS
HS-PE Series · Handheld dot peen
The machine goes to the part instead of the other way round. An electromagnetic base clamps onto the surface, and the battery version runs with no cable and no air line — which is what a rig floor or a remote pad actually gives you.
WHAT IT MARKS
Wellhead and pressure control equipment, manifolds, large valves in place — equipment ID, working pressure rating, temperature and material class, assembly numbers. Marked where the part sits, including during a shutdown.
HS-DG01 · Cylinder date stamp
Built for one job the others do badly: the curved neck ring of a gas cylinder. An extended marking pin reaches into the neck, and three interchangeable rings hold the machine square on different cylinder diameters.
WHAT IT MARKS
Metal Tag Engraving Machine
The same dot peen principle in a version built for flat plate. It is the answer for valve nameplates, and for lines or skids where a coating specification or a client rule forbids marking the surface directly.
WHAT IT MARKS
Valve nameplates, equipment tags, line numbers and data plates — manufacturer and monogram, model and serial, maximum operating pressure, date of manufacture.
Marking a steel flange with the HS-DP200-R rotary dot peen machine
The rotary fixture turns the flange under a fixed head, so the impact stays even right around the face
These five cover most of the industry, not all of it. Valve trim and bonnets, choke bodies, subsea connectors, drill collars, pipe supports, manifold blocks and spools all get marked the same way. If your part is not shown, a photograph and the material grade is usually all we need.
These are the failures that show up at inspection, in rejected shipments, and in the field ten years later.
What we do
Pneumatic machines strike harder than electric ones, which is what a mark has to survive blasting or galvanizing. But the machine sets impact force, not depth— how deep that force goes depends on how hard your material is. Tell us the grade and what the part goes through afterwards, and we will tell you from experience what force setting it needs.
What we do
Dot peen forms characters with a radiused carbide stylus, leaving rounded indentations instead of a cut. This is the low-stress dot method that API 6D and NACE MR0175 both name. Same operator, same station, compliant result.
What we do
Up to 200 kg the rotary fixture takes the part. Beyond that — or once the part is bolted down — a portable head goes to the part instead. If there is air on site it marks deeper; if there is not, the battery version still works.
What we do
Pull the data instead of typing it. The software reads serials, heat numbers and spool IDs straight from a spreadsheet or a database export, so what gets marked is what is in the record.
What we do
A rotary axis turns the part under a fixed head, holding depth constant around the full circumference. For gas cylinder necks, where the curve is tight and the access is awkward, a dedicated machine with an extended pin does the job instead.
Four questions settle it. Answer these and the machine picks itself
Question 1
Under 200 kg → the rotary fixture takes it.
Heavier or already installed → portable.
Question 2
Either → the rotary machine handles both.
A cylinder neck ring → the dedicated machine.
Question 3
Yes → pneumatic hits harder and marks deeper.
No → the battery handheld works anywhere.
Question 4
Blasting, galvanizing or paint → you need a harder strike, and a harder material takes more of it.
If you are a | Your typical parts | Start with | Add later |
|---|---|---|---|
Valve manufacturer | Bodies, bonnets, nameplates | Tag engraver for nameplates | |
Flange and fitting maker | Forged flanges, couplings, elbows | Tag engraver for data plates | |
Pipe or OCTG mill | Line pipe, casing, tool joints | HS-PE01-P for oversize joints | |
Structural or heavy fabrication | Beams, forgings, large castings | Tag engraver for data plates | |
Cylinder maker or filling plant | Gas cylinders, re-test marking | HS-DP200-R for valve and fitting work | |
Service or rental company | Downhole tools, wellhead, pressure control | HS-PE01-P for depth in the shop |
We will tell you when a cheaper machine does the job. Recommending the top of the range when the entry model would have worked is how a supplier loses the second order. If the $1800 machine covers your part, that is what you will hear from us.
Dot peen works up to 60 HRC with a standard carbide stylus, and goes through rust, grease and mill scale that would defeat ink or a label.
Above 60 HRC a special stylus is needed, matched to the hardness. On thin-wall or otherwise sensitive sections, a tag is usually the better answer than marking the part itself.
Not sure about your alloy? Send us the grade and hardness. We have marked most energy-grade steels many times over, so an answer usually comes back the same working day — including an honest one if the material is a poor candidate for dot peen.
It comes down to weight and access. Parts up to 200 kg go on a rotary fixture, which handles both round and flat surfaces — that covers valve bodies, flanges and pipe with one machine. Heavier assemblies and anything already installed need a portable head that clamps onto the part.
If the mark has to survive sandblasting, a pneumatic machine hits harder and goes deeper than an electric one. Gas cylinder neck rings are a separate case, awkward enough to justify a dedicated machine. Nameplates and tags are made on a flat-plate version of the same dot peen technology.
The standard rotary fixture clamps 4 mm to 200 mm in diameter. For bigger flanges and spools a larger one can be built — send the dimensions and we will quote it.
A dot peen machine sets impact force, not depth — air pressure on a pneumatic machine, stroke energy on an electric one. How deep that force goes depends on how hard the metal is, so the same setting gives a deeper mark on mild steel than on a heat-treated component.
Published depth figures are therefore always conditional. Our deepest machine reaches 0.9 mm on softer steel; on hardened grades expect noticeably less.
What matters is that the mark is still legible after everything that happens to the part afterwards. Tell us the grade and the process sequence — blasting, coating, heat treatment — and we will tell you what force setting it takes.
Yes. The handheld unit holds itself on the part and needs no compressed air, so it works on a rig floor or during a shutdown where the asset cannot be removed from service.
A dot peen stylus has a specified tip radius and leaves a rounded indentation rather than a sharp cut. This is why the standards distinguish between stamp types: a sharp V-stamp leaves a notch with a small root radius, which does concentrate stress, while dot marking is accepted as a low-stress method by both API 6D and NACE MR0175.
Keep marking out of designated high-stress areas regardless of method, and follow the location rules in your governing standard.
Yes. The software supports auto-incrementing serials, date and shift codes, and reads from a spreadsheet or a database export so nothing has to be retyped by hand. It generates Data Matrix codes from the same source.
The tag engraver starts at $1,700 and the gas cylinder machine at $1,800. Handheld units run $1,950 to $2,850, the pneumatic deep-marking machine $2,000 to $3,000, and the rotary system $3,000 to $5,000. Custom fixturing and line integration are quoted separately.
Tell us the part and the marking requirement and you will get a specific figure the same working day.
Standard machines are ready in 5~7 working days and go by express courier, door to door. Every unit runs a burn-in before packing, and you commission it yourself with our engineer on a video call — no certified technician needed.
Every machine is covered for one year and we reply within 24 hours. When something fails we diagnose remotely and ship the faulty component, not an engineer — a controller board fits in a courier envelope, a machine does not. Most major spares are on the shelf and leave within 3 working days.
No. For most enquiries we can tell you what to expect from the material and grade alone — we have marked carbon steel, stainless, duplex and the common alloy grades many times over.
If you do want to see it, send a small offcut rather than a finished part. A 150 mm square of plate travels as a small parcel and costs very little, whereas a valve body is freight. We mark it, photograph it and send it back with the setting we used.
