Drawing Wire
When drawing, the plate is held securely in a vise or other fixture. Annealed wire is filed at one end to give it an initial taper. The tapered end is inserted into a hole with a final diameter just smaller than its current width. Special pliers, called draw tongs are used to hold the tip of the wire and pull it through, sometimes with the aid of grease or wax as a lubricant. Small diameter wire may be drawn manually, while very thick wire may require a drawing bench with a crank. Often, a wire can be drawn three times in a row before it needs to be re-annealed. This must be done because drawing wire work-hardens it, which causes the wire to become brittle. Brittle wire that has not been annealed may snap during the drawing process.
Draw plates reduce the thickness of wire by reshaping the metal; increasing length while decreasing diameter. As such, a piece of wire will become considerably lengthened during the drawing process.
Read more about this topic: Draw Plate
Famous quotes containing the words drawing and/or wire:
“Wild as it was, it was hard for me to get rid of the associations of the settlements. Any steady and monotonous sound, to which I did not distinctly attend, passed for a sound of human industry.... Our minds anywhere, when left to themselves, are always thus busily drawing conclusions from false premises.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience the poet like an acrobat climbs on rime to a high wire of his own making.”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919)