Wire Rod Making

The drawing of wires and rods

     Wire has been in use for many hundreds of years. It was made then and for many centuries afterward by beating metal into plates which were then cut into strips and rounded by further beating. Wire drawing was known in the 14^th century,but the machiner used in this process was not perfected until the 19^th. In modern rolling steel mill the raw material is received in the form of small bars or billets. The billets are heated and conveyed to a set of rolls to be reduced in size. Finally, for ordinary sizes of wire, the billet is rolled down to a rod smaller than a lead pencil. The heated rod is carried through a pipe to a coiling device which coils the rod. The coiled metal is coled and take to the drawing plant where it drawn into wire of all sizes. First the scale which has accumulated is. Removed by an acid bath and acid removed in an alkali bath. Next the rod steel, and emerges from the smaller end of the hole reduced in size. The process of drawing the wire through smaller and smaller holes continues until the desired size is reached. As the metal is drawn finer it becomes harder and more brittle,so that from time to time it must be annealed to make it soft and tough and it must be constantly oiled as it is drawn through the dies or perforated plates.