In the Bearing Industry, manufacturers of Balls and Rollers face the challenge of processing cold formed balls and rollers into finished parts.  Using traditional forming methods, the ball or roller is formed with a flash ring around the midsection of the part.  Several process steps must be taken to work or remove this flash ring.  In recent years, NMLLC has developed a process to form Barrel Rollers and Balls with virtually no flash ring.  Doing this has helped reduce the number of steps needed to process these components.  The added advantage of doing this is that the grain flow is also improved by eliminating end grain in the mid section and ends of the parts.

The High Pressure Lever (HPL) is a device that was developed and patented at NMLLC.  This device is used to create spring pressure within the Tool or Die that is up to 10 times the amount of force that can be created by traditional coil or Nitrogen Gas Springs located within the tool bores.  This device uses a lever and very large Gas Spring to generate exceptional forces that can be applied to the back of your tooling.  This is very important when performing any forming operation that requires “Closed Die” forming, such as segments or lateral extrusions.  Due to the ability to generate very large spring forces on the sliding tools, we can eliminate witness lines from segments and flash lines between the Punch and Die.

Over the years NMLLC has been involved in several projects requiring the piercing of holes through the sides of parts.  This can present a challenge as the hole is pierced 90 degrees from the direction of the heading slide travel.  Our team has been able to find ways to incorporate motion to not only pierce the hole, but also evacuate the pierce slug and dispose of it separate from the finished part.

Many cold  forming companies are aware of the need to perform secondary operations to flatten the ends of components.  This is a process that typically cannot be done in the cold forming machine.  NMLLC has developed a device that allows the part to be rotated 90 degrees up or down so that forming operations can be performed on parts in the forming machine.  This allows for flattening, piercing, forming and trimming across the original axis of the part.