The earliest form of producing a rolled thread came from a technique called bump rolling. This utilized a single roll that pressed the form into the material with side pressure. While it was the original approach to rolling threads it certainly earned the craft the nick name of “black art”. It took painstaking effort to achieve set up success and was helped by the wide use of soft leaded steels. Set ups were best done “When the moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars”. Despite its perils it could be productive and most certainly became the catalyst for developing more robust attachments and machines.
Further development brought about robust mechanical devices that could be pneumatic or purely cam driven. Few of the early devices could be used easily on modern CNC equipment but remain in use today on multi spindle automatic machines. Pneumatic devices require dry filtered air for best performance. Pneumatic delivery systems during high humidity days are notorious for compressing water out of the air and fouling the operation of the tool resulting in sketchy tool performance. The pure mechanical devices are unencumbered by humidity.
Today’s materials with the removal of lead from most manufacturing have created a new set of demands on the tools and machines that frequently demand rolled threads for quality and economy. Virtually all machine applications have one or more tool selections available to achieve an economical end result. Review your application with us. We can recommend one or more solutions to your specific needs.