The Process of Forming Metal

Metals come from mineral bearing rocks known as ores. When ancient people began to discover that adding heat to rock ore would release the metallic properties from the rock, societies began developing industries. Throughout history, cultures who possessed the metals, such as copper and tin, and the know how to develop the metal into tools and artifacts, were the more prosperous nations. Metal had value back then, and was the mark of progress. Today, metal continues to be valuable as evidenced by the fact that an entire industry of metal workers exist solely to shape metal into usable objects. Over the years as technology and the demand for metal objects have increased, the methods for forming metal have also progressed. Today, several types of machines have been engineered to help form metal into precise shapes and sizes.

Metal working can generally be divided into the forming, cutting and joining categories. Forming is the process of changing the shape of a piece of metal by manipulating it into a new shape without removing any of the metal material. Cutting, as the name suggests, is the art of shaping metal by removing excess material and cutting a piece of metal into a specified shape. Joining, on the other hand, consists of forming two pieces of metal together by welding, or melting the two pieces being fused and adding a third, filler metal, to basically glue the shape together. Although all three of these methods are fascinating, this article takes a particular interest in the process of forming metal.

Forming metal refers to the process of taking a piece of metal in one form and manipulating it into a new shape. Metal is formed without adding or taking anything away from the original shape. Basically metal can be formed by subjecting it to heat or by applying mechanical force. Heat can be used to melt the metal completely at which time it can be molded into a new shape. Heat can also be applied to make the metal malleable and more susceptible to the use of mechanical force to shape the metal.

Die casting is an example of adding heat to melt metal and mold it into a new shape. With die casting, high pressure is used to force molten metal into mold cavities. The roll form die process is a modern example of the die system. The second way of using heat to manipulate metal, as mentioned above, is to heat the metal until it is malleable. An example of this process is hot forging, or heating up the metal and then using tools such as hydraulic presses to reshape the metal while it is at a forging temperature. The final way to manipulate metal is through pure mechanical force. The roll forming process is an example of the mechanical force used to bend metal into a specific shape.