My Old Blogs at Yahoo!360 / MTP

Entry for November 24, 2006 -- NO MORE GHOSTS !!!! :)

This blog is about "Wire-Drawing"

Please note:   I am NOT an engineer and I did not major in anything related to that.

Early this week I went with Japanese chemical experts to a few wire-drawing factories around Bangkok to translate for them. That was why I had been rather quiet after letting loose all those ghosts to haunt Y!360.

The Japanese came to Thailand to sell their chemicals. 5 years ago I had NO IDEA what a wire-drawing factory was like. These days after a lot of field trips to the production lines and many hours of translation in wire-drawing talks, I started to understand a little about it. Don't worry:   I am not going to post a difficult lecture or thesis here.

In our daily life we use lots of nails, screws, nuts, bolts, springs. These are made from various kinds of wire. Barbed wire, sifts, some metal filters, electrical cords, etc., are also further products made from wire. Actually things made from wire are everywhere in our daily life, from our bedroom to our cars and our offices.

Basically metals that are used to make wire are iron, copper, and aluminum. Usually carbon is added into iron to make it harder and is called carbon steel. There are low, medium, and high carbon steel. And there is also stainless steel.

Have you fallen asleep? No? Good!

The raw material for wire-drawing factories is called wire rod. (Look for pictures of the coiled ones.) Surprised to know a 'rod" is coiled? Me, too!   One coil is about 2000 kilograms! Each rod has a diameter smaller or slightly thicker than a pencil's.

I have never seen how metals are made into coils of wire rod so I am not going to talk about it here. Anyway, at a wire-drawing factory, huge wire rod coils are dipped into several tanks: first, into acid tank to get rid of impurities and rust, then into water to clean, after that, maybe into something alkaline, or into some solution so as to form a coating or thin film for the wire. It is interesting to see these huge tanks in one or two rows. You have to climb the stairs up to see them. Each tank has different solutions with different colors. The air is usually terrible.   So is the heat. Sorry, I cannot put pics here.... Please use your imagination.

Anyway, let's skip some steps and go to the part where the wire is ready for drawing. wire drawing machines. These are to draw wire to the selected diameters.   Smaller, of course!   In each section there is a die that the wire will go through and becomes smaller. At the center of a die there is something very hard, for example, diamond. Sometimes a die is in a small box and certain kind of powder or oil has to be put into that box. We call these powder or oil "lubricants".   Good lubricants can reduce friction between wire surface and die surface, and keep the die cool. We sell these chemicals.

The experts and the engineers talk about speed, temperature, viscosity, reduction rate, ph, concentration, diameters, wire surface, chemical names, and so on, and decide on the best kind of lubricants.   We also sell rust preventing chemicals for finished products.

After the wire is drawn into smaller diameters, it is coiled and packed and sent to screw / nut / nail / spring manufacturing plants for further processing.

OK, I guess this is enough..... (y a w n)

Now kindly give your comments here.   Thank you.

Engineers:   Please speak up!