Drawing Lubrication

Here is my situation, I run a small process that produces a cored welding wire. We then draw the cored wire down to size and spool for shipment.

What we (I) cannot figure out is how do I remove all the lubricant residue from the wire after being drawn down to size?

I cannot use liquids as it is a formed core wire and cannot take the chance of contamination to the core. Nor can I bake at high temperatures creating color changes in the wire.

The ultimate goal is to produce a clean dust or residue free material that will not dirty the gears on a welding machine over time.

Any advice is welcome at this point. Thanks to all.

Greetings from Toronto,

Today the most probably cleanest wire can be achieved using The PlasmaClean process by Plasmait.

www.plasmait.com

Best Regards

hi,

you could try using spiral or static brushes prior to spooling, to remove soap residual

Jack Prendergast
Wiredrawing and Day Services Manager.
Pacific Wire

Without knowing more about the type of wire and the drafting practices, it is difficult to give an exact answer. However, in order to draw wire, you need a lubricant unless you want to try drawing without any. In which case, the die life will be extremely poor with very slow speeds. You did not indicate the final size of the wire. If the final size is very fine, i.e., <0.020" you could try a diamond or compac die in the last few drafts without any lubricant. The die life will still be iffy and the speeds rather slow but it may give you the surface that you want.

For larger diameter wire drawing multi drafts, using a low titer, rich sodium soap will tend to put on less residual. Then using the sprial brushes (mentioned earlier) and possibly opening the finish die angle and using a longer bearing, will again put less residual on the wire.

Those are the thoughts of a lube supplier.

Regards


David Gzesh
Application Specialist
Blachford Corporation
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