The authoritative public forum
  for Metal Finishing since 1989
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ECD of sheet metal components

 

I recently visited a sheet metal factory of my friend who is making circlip, spring pins and other components out of spring steel strips (EN 42 grade or equivalent). The blanks are punched-out using die-sets on mechanical presses. The edges of these cut components have fine, sharp burrs which are difficult to remove by hand polishing and at the same time it is time consuming. Please advise if electro-chemical deburring is the answer and please also throw light on the gas evolution problems (like Hydrogen may cause serious embrittlement problems as these are highly stressed spring sheet metal components).

(Mr.) Surendra Mohnot
Spa Group of Companies - Mumbai, MH, India

I would recommend mass finishing. This will allow you to process many (possibly hundreds or thousands) parts at once. The parts could probably be done part-on-part, or with a real small ceramic media. I would also recommend trying an alkaline formulation for the deburring compound.

Dan Brewer
chemical process supplier - Gurnee, Illinois

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Forget about any Chemical process for hardened steel. Go with Ball burnishing as vibro finishing with ceramic attacks the whole component and not only the burrs. If toloerances permit then v.f. is the most economical answer.

Khozem Vahaanwala
Saify Ind

Bengaluru, Karnataka, India