I have been meaning to post about this for years and reading a post earlier about what a riv nut is I thought I would show you this.
It is a tool I first discovered at my work place as they use one for a product we make.
The vid on the main page is a little nugget of engineering porn!
Anyone else know of this funky process? I don't think the bits are cheap!
http://www.flowdrill.com
[Edited on 3/7/13 by bi22le]
Dont think it would work on a hand drill though which would make it pretty useless for kitcar building. Never the less a good invention.
no way is that DIY but amazing the bit can withstand that
Not come across that before, very impressive!
We've used punch tooling in thin sheet metal where the punch drags material with it making an elongated hole that can be tapped. Similar end
result to the flow drill process, but again the tooling and press machinery are not cheap or available to the home user.
Oooh, interesting. Not seen that before.
My work is always on the look out for different fixing techniques.
That process has been around for five years or so I think, but you'd never do it with a hand drill since it needs a lot of of force on the "drill" bit to get the initial heating working.
Thats really rather impressive, now they need to find a way to get it to tap the hole in the same stroke...
Flowdrilling is interesting, friction stir welding is something else
quote:
Originally posted by indykid
Flowdrilling is interesting, friction stir welding is something else
Makes tig look messy, no good for thin metal tube by the looks of it though.
Cant see the vid, but I presume its the friction forming into a tube?
I saw this demonstrated at a show what must be about 13 years ago and never saw it since. On a few occasions I wondered what happened to it while
building my car.
ISTR them demonstrating it using a small CNC mill or similar so unfortunately others are probably right that you couldn't do this at home
easily.
David
quote:way way longer - they were already quite established when I looked into them at uni back in 1999....
Originally posted by MikeRJThat process has been around for five years or so I think
There is a post from the manufacturer at the end of this thread http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=123910
Possible on a bench drill, just!
Id want a full face shield, leather apron and a leather jock strap at the very least if using this on a pillar drill looking at the way it splashes
molten metal around.
not really for DIY but very good.
Their are other options that can be used in every day use.
Extrudetite... (Their are also many other trade names for these because extrudetite are a licensed product use in OEM manufacturing)
The point of the screw heats the material and then forms a turret, the thread forms the thread into the turret giving you either a metric or imperial
thread.
http://www.taptite.com/pdfs/documents/TAPTITEII-CONTI-reminc.pdf
You will also notice in the above link that therir are also triobular products which form threads into non threaded nut members, again used by all
Automotive OEM's
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRJ
That process has been around for five years or so I think, but you'd never do it with a hand drill since it needs a lot of of force on the "drill" bit to get the initial heating working.