In the dialect of my family, the nail is called "foreign nail", and I once asked my grandfather why there is a "foreign" in front of the nail? Say that it is because of the stuff that came in from abroad, so I added a foreign word... Think about it, after all, china's ancient carpenters mainly used riveting and mortise structures to fix various objects...
Hand punch to make nails
Before we get started with today's assembly line, let's take a look at how cumbersome it is to build a nail by hand... I checked some standard hand nail information, probably: after burning the front end of the small iron rod to the heat, I have to keep pounding and tapping the fine and sharp.
Then, the small tip cone formed on the iron rod is cut off, which is the prototype of the nail. After clamping with the tool, the tip is placed on the holed iron base with the pointed head down, and finally the heated flat end is knocked flat
Isn't it super hasslesome? Next, we look at the production of the assembly line, which improves the efficiency of tens or hundreds of times! It is up to the machine to "make a miracle", and we start with the roll of steel wire
Coiled steel wire
In order to make it more convenient to transport goods in the factory, all the wire wires that make nails are transported in rolls, and then straighten the wire when they are sent to the nail factory.
Pull fine several times
At this time, the wire is much thicker than the diameter of the nail, which requires the use of the machine in the lower left corner of the figure below, pulling many times, each time so that the thick wire is vigorously pulled through the holes that are smaller than their own diameter, it is longer and thinner, and it is necessary to repeat 6 times such operations, that is, 6 machines with different hole diameters...
There is a similar operation of stretching and rolling long on extension rolling mills that process hardware.
The two super pressure rollers above and below are rolled to make the big gold rods longer and thinner, and the gap between the drums from right to left is smaller in turn, and what comes out after multiple rolling is the slender gold bars.
Straighten the wire
Processing to the appropriate thickness of the carbon wire, now to manually into the following figure of several sets of symmetrical rollers, began to straighten the wire. Does this wire look as if it's easy to bend? This is the illusion that the machine gives you, you are absolutely unbendable with your bare hands...
There is also this basic operation in the hardware processing
With so many strands of steel cable twisted out of a steel cable, it is difficult to ensure that it is completely straight, which requires the use of a lot of rollers for shape straightening.
Nail making link
Then came the nail making process that we were most curious about! First look at how the wire is cut after it is sent into the machine... Normal speed.
Let's look at the slow motion: knock out the flat head first, and then cut out the pointed head.
At this time, what fell down was already a pointed and flat steel nail.
Guess some friends may ask, the head nail is also a steel wire that smashes the circle and cuts the pointed head in one piece... Of course not! The head nails are made of nail caps and nails separately, and then combined together!
First punch a pit on the nail cap, and then send it to the nail mouth (pay attention to the spare part of the joint, equivalent to a mold), the nail cap is strongly squeezed by the stamping machine to deform, and the pit will be tightly wrapped and clamped to the nail post, which is the integration of the pins!
Galvanized and rust-proof
The carbon steel that makes the nails is hard, but it is easy to rust, so it must be treated with anti-rust, generally galvanized. In the past, when you bought nails, you had to tell the hardware store owner the reason for "galvanizing nails", but now it seems that they are galvanized by default... This link, I plan to write in detail next time, skip it first~
Screw guns with roll nails
Now it is very common to use pneumatic nail guns to hit nails, and it feels like the carpenters have everyone... 🤔
The nails used here are rolled up, and they are put directly into the nail gun (there is a feeling of loading bullets). Look closely, there are two plastic straps in the middle that glue the nails at a certain spacing...
So let's look at how the nails are pointed to the side when they are made, and then arranged in rolls
The nail tip is facing down
Start by making the spikes all in one direction. In the production of highlighters, there is such a link, so that all the pen tubes can be oriented in one direction.
The collected pen tube will fall to the bottom and there will be a rotating mechanism to identify the front and back, if the pen tube is not in the correct position, it will be dropped by 180° and sent to the next link.
For the nails, it is simple, directly transfer the nails to the large turntable below.
Because the turntable and the surrounding baffles are gaps, and the nail itself is large and small, the tip of the nail that leaks from the gap moves centripetally, and naturally the big head is stuck, and the tip is hanging downwards...
Then we will pick you up and drop you off at the next machine and prepare to sit in a row
Fixed intervals
On the big disc in the middle, there is a turnip and a pit, and the big nails that are sent in will be stuck neatly and neatly... The fixed interval between the nail and the nail is what is done.
Glue on the plastic tape
At the exit of this disc, directly on the plastic nail belt, to the nail, because the nail and the nail has been arranged between the fixed interval, so this link is very refreshing and neat.
Roll into a plate
Finally, after the rolls are ready, they are sent away uniformly. Do you see the plastic nail belt in the picture below, which looks different from the previous nail gun demonstration? This is because the American standard (American standard) and the national standard (China's standard) are different, the production is the same, just like the European plug and the Chinese plug is different, there is no other reason ~
Wait a minute! Xiaobian also has something to say...
That being said, when we play with nails, sometimes we find... Yikes! How the nails are still threaded!
This structure is to make the nails hit the wood, after the wall, the friction is stronger, it is easier to get stuck, and it is not easy to slip out. In terms of production, it is an additional process of extruding the nails by the machine to extrude the texture, also known as "rubbing the silk".
Below give a close-up of a detail ~
After the heat treated bolt is cooled, you can "carve" the thread ~ put the bolt between the two cylinder rollers, there are carved threads on the rollers, and the machine can "press" the thread on the bolts with a pressure of 40 kg.
Proofreader: Cast + Jiang Xiao funeral
Screenshot: Yang Brother
In this article, Gif is excerpted from YouTube blogger Xinjie Industrial Co., Ltd.'s "Pneumatic Screw Gun Operation Method", Zheng Shiyi's "Taiwan's Known As Foreign Nail, Iron Nail Production Process", Yongchao Zhang's "C Type Nail Production Process", Ruthpingzhou's "Traditional Nail Making" and Discovery's "Factory Made" S01E03 and S02E22、日本論 Science Channel Channel 的 THE MAKING Video (212)《画鋲ができるまで》
Original title: Assembly line to do nails ~ flat end is flattened, pointed tip end is cut out...
Source: Fun Manufacturing
Edit: Dannis