This article discusses the three characteristics that are important in evaluating and selecting metals for thread rolling, namely, rollability, flaking, and seaming. It reviews the capabilities and limitations of flat-die rolling, radial-infeed rolling, tangential rolling, through-feed rolling, planetary thread rolling, continuous rolling, and internal thread rolling, as well as the rolling machines and dies used. The article describes the factors affecting die life and provides information on radial die load, seam formation, surface finish, and thread dimensions that are affected by the form of the thread. It explains the reasons for using fluids in thread rolling. The article concludes with a comparison of rolling with cutting and grinding.

Thread rolling is a cold-forming process for producing threads or other helical or annular forms by rolling the impression of hardened steel dies into the surface of a cylindrical or conical blank. Methods that use cylindrical dies are classified as radial infeed, tangential feed, through feed, planetary, and internal. This article focuses on the capabilities, limitations, and machines used for these methods. It describes the three characteristics, such as rollability, flaking, and seaming, used in evaluating and selecting metals for thread rolling. The article explores the factors affecting die life and explains the effect of thread form on processing. It provides information on various fluids used in thread rolling to cool the dies and the work and to improve the finish on the rolled products. The article provides a comparison between thread rolling and cutting, as well as between thread rolling and grinding.

This article discusses the principles of grinding process. It illustrates a typical wheel-work characteristic chart relating surface finish, wheel wear rate, metal removal rate, and power to the normal force. The article also reviews the effect of variations in work material, wheel specification, wheel speed, coolant, and grinding wheel-work conformity on the slopes of the wheel-work characteristic chart.

This article discusses the different classes of gears, namely, spur, helical, herringbone, crossed-axes helical, worm, internal, rack, bevel, or face-type. It describes the methods used to cut the teeth of gears other than bevel gears: milling, broaching, shear cutting, hobbing, shaping, and rack cutting. The article also reviews the methods that are used to cut the teeth of bevel gears, such as face mill cutting, face hob cutting, formate cutting, helix form cutting, the Cyclex method, and template machining. The machining methods best suited to specific conditions are discussed. The article presents the factors influencing the choice of cutting speed and cutting fluids. It outlines two basic methods for the grinding of gear teeth: form grinding and generation grinding. The article concludes with information on the gear inspection techniques used to determine whether the resulting product meets design specifications and requirements.

This article discusses the various elements of thread grinding processes, including thread grinding machines, tolerances, wheel selection, grinding speed, and grinding fluids. It describes truing of grinding wheels and reviews the process applications. In addition, the article describes the five basic methods employed for cylindrical thread grinding, namely, single-rib wheel traverse grinding, multirib wheel traverse grinding, multirib wheel plunge grinding, multirib wheel skip-rib, or alternate-rib, grinding, and multirib wheel three-rib grinding. It also provides an overview of centerless grinding of threads and high-volume applications of thread grinding.

Rotary swaging is an incremental metalworking process for reducing the cross-sectional area or otherwise changing the shape of bars, tubes, or wires by repeated radial blows with two or more dies. This article discusses the applicability of swaging and metal flow during swaging. It describes the types of rotary swaging machines, auxiliary tools, and swaging dies used for rotary swaging and the procedure for determining the side clearance in swaging dies. The article presents an overview of automated swaging machines and tube swaging, with and without a mandrel. It analyzes the effect of reduction, feed rate, die taper angle, surface contaminants, lubrication, and material response on swaging operation. The article discusses the applications for which swaging is the best method for producing a given shape, and compares swaging with alternative processes. It concludes with a discussion on special applications of swagging.

Rolling is the process of reducing the thickness or changing the cross section of a workpiece by compressive forces applied through a set of rolls. This article emphasizes flat rolling and illustrates basic flat-rolling process used to reduce the thickness of a rectangular cross section. It provides a discussion on hot rolling, cold rolling, and warm rolling, as well as lubrication in rolling. The article reviews the lubrication for iron-base and nickel-base materials, light metals, copper-base alloys, and titanium alloys. It discusses the wear mechanism in rolling: abrasion, adhesion, and fatigue, as well as oxidative and corrosive wear. Surface modification techniques, such as hardening by induction heat treating, weld overlay, thermal spray coating, coating via physical vapor deposition (PVD), and laser surface treatment, are also discussed for improving roll service life.

This article focuses on the machining of reactive metals which refer collectively to the elements titanium, hafnium, and zirconium. It provides guidelines for machining titanium and titanium alloys and describes machining operations, such as turning, milling, drilling, tapping, reaming, grinding, and sawing, performed on titanium and its alloys. The article also provides information on electrochemical machining (ECM), chemical milling (CHM), and laser beam machining (LBM) for titanium and titanium alloys. Guidelines for machining zirconium alloys and hafnium are also provided. The article provides a short description of turning, milling, and drilling operations performed on zirconium alloys and hafnium. It also discusses health and safety considerations related to zirconium and hafnium.

Nickel-base alloys can be machined by techniques that are used for iron-base alloys. This article discusses the effects of distortion and microstructure on the machinability of nickel alloys. It tabulates the classification of nickel alloys based on machining characteristics. The article describes the machining operations performed on nickel alloys, such as turning, planing and shaping, broaching, reaming, drilling, tapping and threading, milling, sawing, and grinding. It provides information on the cutting fluids used in the machining of nickel alloys. The article also analyzes nontraditional machining methods that are suitable for shaping high-temperature, high-strength nickel alloys. These include electrochemical machining, electron beam machining, and laser beam machining.

This article describes the selection of tool steels on the basis of specific product applications. It contains tables that list nominal speeds and feeds for the machining of various tool steels. The machining processes include turning, boring, broaching, drilling, reaming, tapping, milling, and sawing. The article explains the machining of the following tool steels: water hardening; types A, D and O cold-work; hot work; high speed, low-alloy special-purpose; and low-carbon mold. It details the machining of tool steel gears. The article also discusses the grinding of tool steels based on steel classification and the effects of steel composition and hardness on grindability. It reviews the types of grinding, namely, surface grinding, cylindrical grinding, centerless grinding, internal grinding, thread grinding, flute grinding, and low-stress grinding. Grinding of types-A, D, F, L, O, P, S and W steels, hot-work steels, and high speed steels, is also detailed.

This article provides a discussion on cutting tools, their materials and design; cutting fluids; and various aspects of machining operations of heat-resistant alloys, with several examples. Operations such as turning, planing and shaping, broaching, drilling, reaming, counterboring and spotfacing, tapping and thread milling, milling, sawing, and grinding are discussed. Nominal compositions of wrought heat-resistant alloys and nickel-base heat-resistant casting alloys, as well as compositions of cobalt-base heat-resistant casting, iron-base heat-resistant casting, and mechanically alloyed (oxide dispersion strengthened) products are also listed.

This article begins with a discussion on the classification of aluminum alloys and the selection of alloy and temper based on machinability. It provides an overview of cutting force and power, tool design and material, and general machining conditions. In addition, the article discusses distortion and dimensional variation and machining problems during the machining of high-silicon aluminum alloy. It also provides information on tool design and material, speed and feed, and the cutting fluid used for various machining processes, namely, turning, boring, planing and shaping, broaching, reaming, tapping, milling, sawing, grinding, honing, and lapping. The article concludes with a discussion on drilling operations in automatic bar and chucking machines and drill presses.