Exploring Cold Drawing: Benefits and a Complete Process

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‍What is cold drawing?

‍Cold drawing is a manufacturing technique used in industry for the production of metal bars or profiles. The purpose of the drawing process is to reduce the size of a material to give it a very precise shape. To do this we go through several steps:

• Reducing the cross section of the raw material by making silk (reduction of the end of the raw material)
• Then we pass through a process that is also called matrix.
• Finally, the stretching machine called the cold drawing bench will pull the material using trolleys and thus obtain a reduced dimension with very precise dimensional dimensions and increased mechanical characteristics.

In this article, we are going to explore this technique and the benefits it offers in more detail.

The complete stretching process

Drawing is a multi-stage production process. First, the raw material is selected based on the specifications required for the final product.
The materials most commonly used in cold drawing are steel and stainless steel, which are themselves subdivided into a multitude of variations.

Step 1: Pickling

We perform mechanical stripping of the material by shot blasting = The aim of this operation is to prepare the material for cold processing by eliminating the potential presence of scale on the raw material to be stretched. This step involves projecting abrasive particles onto the surface of the material to remove surface defects and improve the adhesion of the coatings.

2^th stage: cold rolling

This step consists in transforming the prepared material in a rolling mill, which shapes it into the desired shape and makes it possible to obtain a semi-finished product.

The objective is to deform the material to obtain a shape different from that of the raw material.

Lamination also makes it possible to obtain more precise profiles and more consistent dimensions. The machines used for rolling are equipped with rollers specially designed to guarantee optimal rolling quality.

3^th Step: Heat treatment of the material

In order to release the stresses generated during the cold rolling of the material and obtain structures in accordance with customer requirements, we will pass the semi-finished product into a coil or bar oven to carry out the heat treatment.

4^th Step: Shot-blasting

We will strip the material again to remove any traces of scale and prepare the material for cold processing.

5^th Cold drawing stage

The final manufacturing step is cold drawing. This step consists of:

• pull the raw material through a narrow die using trolleys.
• It is then straightened using pebbles.
• Finally, it is sheared to the desired length.

The material is stretched to a reduced size and a precise shape. This operation also makes it possible to improve the strength and quality of the material, with optimal mechanical properties and increased strength.
At Gardette, bars and profiles range from 3 to 4 meters and we also offer coil drawing.
By combining these processes, we are able to obtain full products that are:

• Square, round or flat bars with excellent mechanical precision
• Metal profiles without material removal
• High-performance drawn coils on small dimensions

Why trust Gardette for your bars, profiles and coils rather than a simple reseller?

Our business structure, which meets key responsive manufacturing, allows us to be as flexible and responsive as a reseller by being a manufacturer of our own material and therefore specialized and versatile.

In addition, we stretch 100% of the material in France and this has the advantage of guaranteeing superior material quality and complete traceability of the manufacturing process.

We are the only key manufacturer in the world to master cold drawing in accordance with current quality standards (NF EN 10277-DIN 6880).