All metal base plate having a hardened flange and soft hub for attaching a load beam assembly to a head actuator arm of a disk drive by swaging

For use in a disk head assembly for supporting read/write heads adjacent rotating disks in a disk drive, a one piece, metal base plate for attaching a load beam assembly to a head actuator arm comprising:

• a metal flange portion that is hard;
• and
• a metal hub portion that is softer than said flange portion;
• said hub being inserted into a load beam boss hole in said load beam with said flange portion of
• said base plate being welded to said load beam;
• said hub being inserted into an actuator arm boss hole in said actuator arm such that a swage ball passed through a center of said hub causes pressure to be applied to cause said hub to expand into said boss hole in said actuator arm, thereby rigidly connecting said hub and attached load beam to said actuator arm boss hole.

For use in a disk head assembly for supporting read/write heads adjacent rotating disks in disk drives, a one piece, metal base plate for attaching a load beam to a head actuator arm comprising:

• a flange portion that is hard;
• said flange of said base plate being welded to said load beam;
• and,
• a hub portion that is softer than said flange portion;
• said hub capable of being deformed in a swaging process in which a steel ball is passed through a center of said hub of said base plate, whereby said hub plastically deforms, it hardens, thereby maintaining a press fit in said actuator arm boss hole.