In general engineering, and especially in the machine tool industry there has always been a need for linear guides. Over the past 20 to 30 years ball and roller guides have replaced the conventional sliding guides in most applications. Advantages of these guiding systems which are based on rolling contact are improved efficiency, lower maintenance costs and better serviceability: If the guide system is worn or defective, it can be easily replaced completely.

Profiled rail guides are available in different designs and sizes. Guides with rails from 15 to 25 mm height have a large market share. For this important market segment FUHR has developed cold rolling mills, which produce the rails from round wire feedstock.

Production is done from coil to bar and replaces the need for conventional single rod manufacturing steps such as hot rolling and bar drawing and the intermediate coating, cleaning and heat treatments. The high precision of the rolled bars allows direct downstream processing by induction hardening and profile grinding.

Productivity and profitability are increased significantly by cold rolling.

In the process of spinning or in the production of nonwoven materials, carding serves for the first alignment of the loose textile fibers to a pile or nap. Machines for carding are called carding machines or simply carders. The place where carding is performed is called the carding room.

The fiber tufts are well cleaned and supplied to the carder as uniformly as possible. A feed roller (also known as a licker-in) loosens the tufts and supplies them to the swift (a roller of large diameter provided with tooth-like fittings). The fibers are caught by the teeth of the rapidly rotating swift and transported into the upper part of the carder. On the upper side of the storage drum, boards (flat bars) or small pairs of rollers are located, which are also provided with tooth fittings or with flexible hooks. The difference in the direction of rotation, as well as the relative orientation of the fittings, opens the tufts and lines up the fibers in parallel. The teeth of the fittings are directed against one another (also known as carding setting). In addition, the high rotational speed of the swift causes dirt and dust to be thrown out.

The tooth fittings on the swift and rollers are wearing parts which must be replaced regularly. Toothed profile wires with hardened points are therefore used.

With FUHR rolling mills, round high carbon steel wire is rolled into profile wire on which teeth are stamped in further production steps and then inductively hardened in the tooth area.

A weaving machine is a technical device for the production of textile fabrics. In weaving machines (or looms), warp thread is fed from the rear side of the machine to the front. Here weft threads are each propelled from one side to the other between the warp threads, so that in the finished fabric the weft threads are held together by the warp threads. In order to make this possible, part of the warp threads are raised and the other part lowered.

The produces an opening through which the weft thread can be drawn. This opening is known as the shed. There are various ways in which the thread can be fed through. The oldest form here is the shuttle which carries a roll of thread and is propelled through the shed as a whole. There are also looms where the weft threads are propelled from one side by fine air or water jet, propelled with a so-called projectile or passed through the shed by two grippers. With small ribbons the thread can be passed through with a needle and crocheted on the other side.

Modern weaving machines can also feature several sheds so that several weft threads can be propelled through at the same time to increase productivity. This allows such looms to reach weft insertion of up to 5000 m/min. The procedure used depends on the width of the fabric to be produced. The scope ranges from narrow ribbon looms to wide fabrics of ten meters and more.

In weaving, a heddle is a lifting element for those warp threads which are used to form a shed. The heddles have an eye in the middle through which a single warp thread runs. These heddles are typically produced from round wire in the cold rolling procedure.

With FUHR rolling mills round stainless steel wire is rolled into flat wire which is stamped and bent in further production steps.

HSS or High Speed Steel is a group of alloyed tool steels containing up to 2.06 % carbon and up to 30 % of alloying elements like tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium, cobalt, nickel and titanium. With repeated tempering these combine with the carbon to form the secondary carbides essential for the intended purpose.

HSS materials are characterized by their great hardness, tempering resistance, wear resistance and high-temperature strength up to 600 °C. In metal-cutting operations on machine tools they are chiefly used as cutting materials for tools. Their properties allow higher cutting speeds than low-alloy tool steels, larger spaces for swarf and thus a higher swarf volume per unit time.

Besides drilling, turning and milling tools in HSS, this material is finding increasing application in saw blades for jigsaws and saw blades for band saws. Since HSS materials are relatively expensive, only the cutting edges are made of HSS. For this, HSS square wire is electron or laser welded onto a normal steel strip, teeth are formed and hardened.

With FUHR rolling mills, the square HSS wire which later provides the cutting edge is produced from round HSS wire. Universal rolling equipment of type WST is generally used for this, in order to be able to produce all the necessary sizes with just one set of rolls.

A screen filter is a technical device for mechanically freeing liquids from suspended solid materials. An important advantage of screen filters compared with other filter systems is the fact that screen filters require no consumables. They can be cleaned by reverse flow rinsing.

Screen filters consist of closely packed parallel filter wires which are welded onto carrier wires beneath them. In most cases the filter wires have a triangular cross section. The triangular geometry of the filter wires has the advantage that the actual filter gap is very short which reduces the likelihood of filter blockage.

Screen filters are used as filter screens (see photo) for solids (coal, stone etc.) and as round filters for liquids (juices, oils, beer, water etc.). In the paper industry they are used in centrifugal filters. They are usually made of stainless steel.

With FUHR rolling mills, both the carrier and the filter wires are rolled from round stainless steel wire. The high precision of the rolled wire is decisive for the quality of the screen filter produced.