What is Edge Conditioning?
Edge conditioning is the process of forming the edges of metal strip, either by machining or skiving, to a desired shape beyond the standard slit edge. These conditioned edges are highly useful on hot rolled low carbon, high carbon, cold rolled, and stainless steel strip in applications where the exposed edges of the strip come in external contact with or are handled by processes that require sensitivity.
Once a time intensive manual process, Tempered & Specialty Metals’ steel edging is quick and consistent, and can be supplied as cut to length, ribbon wound, or traverse wound oscillate coil.
How is it done?
Proper edge conditioning does not scrape the material as the slit edges are rolled with a series of dies that forms the slitting burr together, forming a clean, uniform edge.
This allows us to eliminate any sharp edges, burrs and imperfections that may have resulted from the slitting process, producing a safer and more uniform finished product that is easier to handle and fabricate.
Benefits
Edge conditioning results in significant benefits, including:
- Smooth edges
- The formation of consistent, uniform product
- The removal of sharp, hazardous burrs
- More secure handling
- Improved employee safety
- Reduced liability
- Faster and easier die feed-through
- Increased productivity
- Increased formability, particularly for hard steels
- Allows for tighter width tolerances (+/- .001″)
- The prevention of edge cracking
- Extended life cycles of steel spring applications
Tempered and Specialty Metals’ steel edge conditioning ensures that our customers receive closer than standard width and gauge tolerances, improving die life, reducing loading times by up to 100%, and providing overall cost savings benefits.
