WCA January 2009

Wire drawing machinery & technology The entry ‘Wire Drawing’ in the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia is brief, thorough, and unassailable: Making of wire, generally from a rod or bar. The wire drawing process consists of pointing the rod, threading the pointed end through a die, and attaching the end to a drawing block. The block, made to revolve by an electric motor, pulls the lubricated rod through the die, reducing it in diameter and increasing its length. Fine wire is made by a multiple-block machine, because the reduction cannot be performed in a single draft. It may seem remarkable that this remains a useful definition when so much more equipment has found a home in the corner of the plant reserved to drawing: flattening mills and closers; breakdown machines; bull blocks and motor blocks; draw benches and drawing frames and Turk’s-heads; rigid, tubular, and planetary stranders. To say nothing of the exotic – deadbeat and dieless – and the auxiliary: welders, straighteners, payoffs, cutters. In fact, wire drawing retains its integrity, in concept and in practice, because every addition to the process, every enhancement, represents an answer to a need. The Britannica has it right. Wire making and wire drawing are one and the same. The wire and cable industry has enjoyed steady, organic growth for one reason only: the development, in parallel, of the technology and machinery of wire drawing.

Photo courtesy of Team Meccanica SpA

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2009