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Thread: Help making wire with rolling mill

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    Default Help making wire with rolling mill

    Hi everyone,
    So i was really desperate to be able to use only recycle materials, so i got myself a cheap little rolling mill for £180 by proops brothers, Its got 7 rollers, 2 plain for sheet, v shape wire, D shape, Sqaure shape and 2 pattern rollers.
    I melted down 2.5g of 22ct gold yesterday with the hopes of making 22ct d shape wire, but i find each time i roll it through it leaves a line on the gold so its not rolling it all into a d shape its just leaving a D shape indent on to the gold, what am i doing wrong? i am making sure to anneal every 2-3 turns through the mill and not quenching it until it stops glowing red.
    Are you meant to put the ingot straight into the D shape rollers or am i supposed to roll it to square wire first?
    Thank you

  2. #2
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    If I understand issue correct you will always have small imperfections, to say that straight plain wire you can get only after you pull it thru drawplate? in the mill you just make life easy in the 1st part of processing metal... but maybe I am not experienced enough too hahaha but I had same imperfections...

  3. #3
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    Mar 2018
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ankolosova View Post
    If I understand issue correct you will always have small imperfections, to say that straight plain wire you can get only after you pull it thru drawplate? in the mill you just make life easy in the 1st part of processing metal... but maybe I am not experienced enough too hahaha but I had same imperfections...
    ah no sorry i dont think i explained properly. x
    Its not even really thinning like a wire, its flattening the edges of the gold and leaving a raised D shape impression so its looking a bit like a tyre track if that makes sense? I'm not at all sure what im doing wrong....Do you need a mininum to roll wire? I wondered if its because im only using a 2.5g ingot, or if its because im not rolling it as sqaure wire before putting it through the D shape rollers.

  4. #4
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    well hard to see from description but maybe you are using wrong roller... or wrong size / shape? also do you turn ard wire every time you pull thru machine?

  5. #5
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    I think what is happening is that your ingot is too wide for the D-shaped roller. Turn it into narrow square wire first, several sizes smaller than your desired D-shape and then your problem should resolve.
    Obviously if you can use round wire, it will be easier still, but you will need to do lots of experiments.

    As Anna says above, for perfect wires you need to finish by using a draw plate. That's a totally different ball game involving a draw bench. Dennis.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
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    116

    Cool

    It sounds like your ingot is wider than the d-shaped channel you are rolling with, am I right? If so, you need to understand that a rolling mill will shape the metal length-wise and spread it to fill the width of a channel, but never draw it into a channel to make it narrower. You will have more success either by rolling the ingot to square wire then drawing it down with a round hole drawplate to round wire, or going straight to the round drawplate. Once you have round wire that is about half the diameter of the width of d-shaped wire that you want then roll that through the rolling mill. With a little experimentation you may be able to miss out the drawplate steps and discover the width of square wire that will roll to fill the d-shape channel for the size you want (the square width will be about half the d-shaped width). Since you are using a small amount of gold, the last method would be the least wasteful of your gold.

    I really need to get my thoughts together and type more quickly, as Dennis has beaten me too it!
    Last edited by Paul Kay; 18-01-2019 at 04:03 PM.

  7. #7
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    Mar 2018
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    Thank you all for your advice, you were right, the ingot was too big, i have just successfully rolled enough wire to make 2 rings, although im worried iv rolled the 22ct too thin as it still needs to go through the D shape channel and its already 1.2mm.....the other is more the size i wanted, 2mm by 1.5mm.

  8. #8
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    Yes, even after all this time I refer to past notes, or try it with copper first.

    I should also mention that once thin enough, using a narrower D-Groove to finish up, can create an attractive flange on each side for a less plain ring. Dennis.
    Last edited by Dennis; 19-01-2019 at 01:17 PM.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dennis View Post
    Yes, even after all this time I refer to past notes, or try it with copper first.

    I should also mention that once thin enough, using a narrower D-Groove to finish up, can create an attractive flange on each side for a less plain ring. Dennis.
    I haven’t heard the flange for a long time Dennis, such a good word!

  10. #10
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    Ha ha, they play in my local on Friday nights, Caroline.

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