Make sure you're taking care of your physical needs. Eat well. Exercise. Meditate. Take vitamins. All of these things contribute to your well being and ability to retain information. Exercise can be the crux or key: As, this will cause the rest of the list to happen, more or less automatically.
I have seen this being done with aluminum sheet for aerospace applications. If I remember correctly, they were using a rotating head that pressed down onto the two sheets over an anvil. The sheets were drawn through the device to move the pressure point along the desired bead. It was stated in...