Mandrel

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Mandrel

A mandrel (and also spelled mandril; in American English

American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
also called an arbor) is either an object used to shape machined work; a tool

Tool

A broad definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other....
component

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is the use of machine, tool and labor to make things for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to Industry production, in which raw material are transformed into finished good on a large scale....
that grips or clamps materials to be machined; or a tool component that can be used to grip other moving tool components.

An example of one type of mandrel is a shaped bar of metal

Metal

In chemistry, a metal is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions , and form metallic bonds between other metal atoms and ionic bonds between nonmetal atoms....
inserted in, or next to, an item to be machined or bent in a certain pattern

Pattern

A pattern, from the French language patron, is a type of theme of recurring events of or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set....
.

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Encyclopedia

A mandrel (and also spelled mandril; in American English

American English

Tool

A broad definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other....
component

Manufacturing

Metal

Pattern

A pattern, from the French language patron, is a type of theme of recurring events of or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set....
. Exhaust pipes in automobile

Automobile

An automobile or motor car is a wheeled motor vehicle for transportation passengers, which also carries its own car engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally f...
s are frequently bent using a mandrel during manufacture. The mandrel allows the exhaust pipes to be bent into smooth curve

Curve

In mathematics, a curve consists of the points through which a continuous function moving point passes. This notion captures the intuitive idea of a geometrical dimension object, which furthermore is connectedness in the sense of having no continuous function or continuum ....
s without undesirable creasing, kinking, or collapsing. Molten glass

Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
may be shaped in this way as well. Another example of this type of mandrel is found in jewelry manufacturing, where ring and bracelet

Bracelet

A bracelet is an article of jewelry which is worn around the wrist. Bracelets can be manufacturing from leather, cloth, hemp, plastic or metal, and sometimes contain Rock s, wood, and/or Animal shells....
mandrels are used to shape metal into a desired size and shape

Shape

The shape of an object located in some space is the part of that space occupied by the object, as determined by its external boundary ? abstracting from other properties such as colour, content, and material composition, as well as from the object's other spatial properties ....
, using a tiny hammer

Hammer

A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving Nail s, fitting parts, and breaking up objects....
to beat the metal against the mandrel.

Another type of mandrel is the clamp

Clamp (tool)

A clamp is a fastener to hold or secure objects tightly together to prevent movement or separation through the application of inward pressure. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the term clamp is often used instead when the tool is for temporary use for positioning components during construction and woodworking; thus a C clamp or a sa...
that a lathe uses to hold pieces of wood

Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
, metal or plastic

Plastic

Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic chemistry solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products....
to be machined as they are turned. In this way, rods can be threaded, furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects which may support the human body , provide storage, or hold objects on horizontal surfaces above the ground....
legs are turned to have beautiful patterns, and irregularly-shaped objects can be given a cylindrical or round

Round

Round or rounds can mean:* The shape of a circle or sphere* Rounding , the smoothness of a sediment particle* Roundedness, the roundedness of the lips in the pronunciation of a phoneme...
shape. There are several types of mandrels used with lathes. An expanding mandrel is slightly tapered with a tapered wedge that will expand to hold the item. Other commercial mandrels are very slightly tapered and the hollow object slides down the taper until it 'sticks'. The shop made mandrel shown in the photo is designed to clamp a hollow tube or gear between the two tapered plugs. There is nothing about such a mandrel that can't be made right on the lathe on which it is to be used so it is not uncommon for machinists to make a mandrel to hold a particular item, and then set the mandrel aside hoping to use it again some day. Mandrels of this type are usually set in the lathe on centers and turned with a lathe dog.

The third type of mandrel discussed here is that which is used to hold circular saw

Saw

A saw is a tool that uses a hard blade or wire with an abrasive wear edge to cut through softer materials. The cutting edge of a saw is either a serrated blade or an abrasive....
blade

Blade

A blade is the flat part of a tool, weapon, or machine that normally has a cutting edge and/or pointed end typically made of a flaking stone, such as flint, or metal, most recently steel....
s, buffing wheel

Wheel

A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load , or performing labour in machines....
s (used for polishing), and sanding discs onto drill

Drill

A drill is a tool with a rotating drill bit used for drilling holes in various materials. Drills are commonly used in woodworking, metalworking, construction and most "Do it yourself" projects....
s, circular saws, and similar power tools. A mandrel of this type generally consists of a cylinder

Cylinder (geometry)

A cylinder is one of the most curvilinear basic geometric shapes: the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given straight line, the axis of the cylinder....
, threaded on one end, with a washer

Washer

The word washer may refer to one of the following:*Washing machine*Washer *Headlamps.*Mal Washer, an Australian politician...
brazed onto the threaded end and an accompanying screw

Screw

A screw is a shaft with a helix groove or screw thread formed on its surface and provision at one end to turn the screw. Its main uses are as a threaded fastener used to hold objects together, and as a simple machine used to translate torque into linear force....
and second washer which are used to clamp the circular saw blade, sanding media, or other rotary

Rotary

Rotary can refer to:...
tool onto the mandrel.

While most mandrels are driven by direct connection to an electric motor

Electric motor

An electric motor uses electrical energy to produce mechanical energy, nearly always by the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors....
or engine

Internal combustion engine

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs in a combustion chamber inside and integral to the engine. In an internal combustion engine it is always the expansion of the high temperature and pressure gases that are produced by the combustion which apply force to the movable component of the engine, such as...
, other mandrels are driven by attachment to a bearing-supported, pulley

Pulley

A pulley is a mechanism composed of a wheel with a Groove between two flanges around the wheel's circumference. A rope, cable or belt usually runs inside the groove....
-driven shaft.

In fiber optics, an optical fiber is often wrapped

Mandrel wrapping

In multimode fiber optics, mandrel wrapping is a technique used to preferentially attenuate high-order mode power of a propagating optical Signalling ....
around a mandrel to alter the light traveling in the fiber.

In the production of steel core used for flexible drives, the centre wire upon which the subsequent layers are wound is referred to as a Mandrel. This 'centre wire' may itself be composed of either a single wire or layers depending on the sizing of the finished product.

History

Mandrels are not recent inventions. Metal machining utilizing the spinning

Metal spinning

Metal spinning, also known as spin forming or spinning, is a metalworking process by which a disc or tube of metal is rotated at high speed and formed into an Axial symmetry part....
process has been recorded as far back as ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ian times. In metal spinning, a wood or metal spinning mandrel is used, the form of which corresponds with the internal contour of the part to be produced. This method securely clamps the raw material and allows for accurate machining into the desired final form. Since the material is clamped internally, there is no interference

Interference

In physics, interference is the addition of two or more waves that result in a new wave pattern.Interference usually refers to the interaction of waves which are correlated or Coherence with each other, either because they come from the same source or because they have the same or nearly the same frequency....
to the operator from the lathe/mandrel assembly during production

Production, costs, and pricing

In microeconomics, industrial organization is the field which describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions....
.

Also, the traversing mandrel was introduced around the year 1700 AD, and consisted of designing a lathe mandrel that would be able to slide

Slide

Slide may refer to:...
axially in its bearing

Bearing

Bearing may refer to:* Bearing , a term for direction* Bearing , a component that separates moving parts and takes a load...
s under the control of the operator

Operator

In mathematics, an operator is a function which operates on another function. Often, an "operator" is a function which acts on functions to produce other functions ; or it may be a generalization of such a function, as in linear algebra, where some of the terminology reflects the origin of the subject in operations on the functions which ar...
, so that components having short lengths of thread

Screw thread

A screw thread is a helix structure used to convert between rotational and linear movement or force.A screw thread may be thought of as an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder or cone ....
could be produced, such as screw

Screw

A screw is a shaft with a helix groove or screw thread formed on its surface and provision at one end to turn the screw. Its main uses are as a threaded fastener used to hold objects together, and as a simple machine used to translate torque into linear force....
s. The traversing mandrel was primarily employed by clockmakers and ornamental

Ornamental

Ornamental may refer to:*Christmas ornaments used to festoon a Christmas tree*Ornamental grass, a type of grass grown as a decoration*Ornamental iron, mild steel that has been formed into decorative shapes, similar to wrought iron work...
turners during this era

Era

An era is a commonly used word for long period of time. When used in science, for example geology, eras denote clearly defined periods of time of arbitrary but well defined length, such as for example the Mesozoic era from 252 Ma?66 Ma, delimited by a start event and an end event....
. Eventually this device was superseded by a mandrel-driven device

Machine

A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work....
called a leadscrew
Leadscrew

A leadscrew , also known as a power screw or translation screw, is a screw designed to translate radial motion into linear motion....
, which utilizes a train

Train

A train is a connected series of vehicles that move along a track to rail transport from one place to another. The track usually consists of two rail tracks, but might also be a monorail or magnetic levitation train guideway....
of gear

Gear

A gear is a component within a Transmission device that transmits rotational force to another gear or device. A gear is different from a pulley in that a gear is a round wheel that has linkages that mesh with other gear teeth, allowing force to be fully transferred without slippage....
s that can be altered as required for the turning application.

External links

Historical pictures of mandrels, lathes and leadscrews: http://www.historicgames.com/lathes/special.html