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Parent Category: Technical Articles from Journal Back Copies

Category: Technical Articles 2000

Dennis Davies

Recently I required rectangular and square section wires for cloisonné panels. The wires formed an integral part of the design, but the standard and freely available wires were unsuitable. There seemed no hope in extracting small quantities from commercial drawing sources, so it seemed I would have to make my own from circular section wire of which I had plenty.

Professional advice was to obtain a small hand operated rolling-mill or a drawing die. Enquiries showed the former to be horribly expensive and the latter, although but a tenth of the cost, did not have the section sizes I required.

In surveying the problem, the complexities seemed rather large, but I have always believed in simple solutions to large problems. Aided by many years’ experience in the working of copper, I believed the solution lay in a compromise between rolling-mill and drawing die. The 'rolls' would be fixed solid cylinders and the wire would be drawn by hand through thus exerting a thinning effect.

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