Process FAQ - thirty questions engineers actually ask.

Bird-nesting starts with loose lay and a sharp spool edge or cap. Keep the spool fully cored so there are no empty flanges, use the right spool diameter for the wire, and keep pay-off under light tension. A 0.018 mm wire can be destroyed by its own weight if it is coiled for a heavier gauge. Tell us the diameter and we will core the spool to match it.

Yes - for Cu-Ni NC grades and most resistance alloys at fine gauges. That is the point of the graded series. Pick a grade and a fine gauge that fits your pitch and wind it directly; the soft temper (M) keeps it formable.

Creep means the temper was too soft for a load-bearing shape. Reorder in Y2 (stiffness-with-work) or Y (structural) so the spring holds. Temper is set by furnace cycle and is consistent along the full length, so a whole batch behaves the same way.

It scales with diameter and temper. A hard-tempered fine wire needs a larger bend radius than the same gauge in soft temper. Give us the target bend and we will tell you the temper that survives it without surface cracking.

Y (hard) temper in a low-TCR alloy such as constantan or manganin if the spring must also not drift electrically. Spring duty needs the Y condition; the alloy choice keeps the resistance stable.

Drift within a grade comes from composition windows and from temper - work-hardening changes resistivity. Because we melt in-house we can hold the composition window tighter. Confirm the resistivity target and the temper, and we report measured resistance per unit length with each batch.

A tighter window costs yield, so it is quoted against grade and quantity. Send the window you need; feasibility is confirmed before quoting, not after, and the cost and lead time of a narrow window are stated up front.

Because of TCR. A Cu-Ni NC grade has a normal TCR; constantan is near zero and manganin is very low. If the value moves with power, the material TCR is the cause - move to a low-TCR alloy, or derate the power. Confirm the TCR of the grade you are using.

Thermal EMF is the small voltage generated at the junction where a thermoelectric alloy such as Cu-Ni meets a copper lead. In precision metering it reads as a false value. Manganin, especially 6J13, is chosen specifically for the lowest thermal EMF against copper.

An offset at the low end is usually a leg-pairing or reference-junction effect. Confirm the legs are a matched pair from the same melt, and verify the cold-junction compensation. Pairing and thermal-EMF verification are available per batch against the reference tables.

M is maximum ductility and minimum tensile; Y is maximum tensile and spring; Y2 sits in between. Choose by whether the part is wound (M), needs some stiffness but is still worked (Y2), or must hold its shape structurally (Y).

A visible bend line on a Y-temper wire is normal work-hardening at the bend. It is not a crack as long as the surface remains continuous. If the part will be bent further, expect reduced fatigue life at that spot.

Fine alloy in soft temper is stable if it is kept dry. Blistering or stiffening is a moisture and handling issue, not an age issue - store it dry and the temper holds. A stored batch can be re-verified against the retained sample.

Because a composition window is easier to hold tightly when you control the melt. A reseller is limited to the window of whatever rod they bought. An in-house melt can hit a narrower window - that is what makes us an alloy producer rather than a drawing shop.

You send the metal, rod or wire, and we draw, anneal and test it to your specification and return the finished wire with its material certificate. Use it when you already control where the metal came from but want our drawing and testing behind the final value.

The furnace cycle sets the delivered temper. Soft is a longer or heavier cycle that fully recovers the material; hard is as-drawn with no full anneal. Because the cycle is controlled, the temper is consistent from the first metre to the last, not a batch average.