Introduction of Cut Wire Shot
Cut Wire Shot is manufactured utilizing heightened grade wire whichever is cut to a size almost similar to its diameter. Cut wire shots could be constructed of carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum, zinc, copper & distinct metal alloy wires. In usefulness, shot rapidly rounds into hard, uniform-sized spheres creating it an excellent blast medium for shot peening applications. Its long shot life includes in some instances, facilitated peening costs by as much as 50 pct. Due to this same long life, Cut wire shot has reduced cost of shot cleaning forgings & castings in several plants by 30 to 80 pct.
Cut wire shot is currently constructed from carbon steel wires of analysis comparable to SAE 1065 & so are warmth-treatable. By proper balance of warmth regaling & cold working from drawing functions, wire is standing delivered; for shot purposes certain have tensile strengths in excess of 250,000 psi, hardnesses of 48 to 52 Rc, heightened ductility, & long fatigue life. Due to the inherently accurate method of cutting the wire, the size of the bits varies less than 1 pct avoiding any problems of shot size control.
Tests of Cut wire shots in conventional shot testers which simulate striking conditions present in production blasting equipment consistently show it to maintain an average shot life hundreds of times better than, a bulk of shots now being utilized for abrasive blasting machine operation. Because Cut wire shots can be created from different wires, any Desired properties can be attained. Shot having a hardness of 60 - 62 Rc has been assembled, as nicely as subordinate hardness copper shot. Because of this engineered shot, new usefulness for shot blasting are being discovered.
If shot blasting equipment is in the acceptable situation, no alterations are necessary to utilize Cut wire shot. Excessive leakage or waste of shot is a common trouble accompanied by shot blast equipment. No machine with excessive loss of shot is thrifty to operate accompanied by, any steel shot. When leakage is nominal so certain, long life of Cut wire shot can be fully utilized, & there is usually a major saving in cost through decreased shot consumption.
Tests in production machines have shown a reduction in shot consumption from 8 to 1 to 20 to 1. One outstanding machine showed a reduction of more than 100 to 1. It included been employing 6000 Ib of chilled iron grit per 80 hr week; same production has been maintained, using less than 60 Ib of Cut wire shot per 80 hr week, for additionally than 3 months. These - savings are typical of cost reductions in peening applications employing Cut wire shot. The machine is peening front suspension coil springs in a large automotive plant.
This represents a shot consumption reduction of from 35 Ib per wheel-hr with previous shot to 3.1 Ib per wheel-hr with Cut wire shot. Other applications of peening with two wheel blasting machines on like parts have shown consumptions of new shot to be 2 to 2.5 lb per wheel-hr, & as low as 0.4 lb per wheel-hr in an exceptionally well-operated machine.
