CMS have been in business since 1947, which makes it the longest trading and established spinning company in the United Kingdom. If you add up the years all the group businesses have been trading over, that is 180 years, and when you actually put that in man hours, we have almost 5000 years’ worth of experience with some people having been at the business for over 50 years.
We also have one of the largest ranges of hand metal spinning lathes in the UK, approximately 75 across the businesses with the largest being able to spin a blank of up to 2.2 metres.
Hand Metal Spinning
Overview
Metal Spinning is a metalworking process that converts a disc of metal to a axially symmetrical product.
As the name suggests, the metal spins at high speed and is formed around a form or mandrel to produce a wide range of products, from light fittings to vases, from scuba tanks to cartridges.
Hand Metal spinning is advantageous for you in a number of ways:
- Almost any metal can be used, from aluminium and stainless steel to high strength alloys
- There is very little waste, as metal spinning does not involve the removal of material
- Tooling and production costs are low, compared to other processes
- Parts produced by metal spinning have no seams, so no weak points
- Metal spinning is used to produce prototypes as well as both short & long production runs
We will work with you…
- Identify and source, if needed, the metal needed
- Develop and produce the form or mandrel (tooling) needed to spin the metal around
- Our production team has years of experience and we guarantee your products will be delivered on time and perfect
Frequently Asked Questions
HERE TO HELP
If you are unsure if the shape of your part is a good fit of the spinning process, please contact us. We are happy to assist you with modification that can make your part more spin-friendly.
Metal spinning is actually considered to be one of the oldest methods of forming sheet metal. It is an age old art that has been practiced manually for centuries. Metal spinning is a ‘cold worked’ metal forming process in which sheet metal is formed over a rotating mandrel or form. In metal spinning, the forming process is accomplished by the use of a spinning lathe.
The spinner skillfully shapes a flat piece of metal (steel, stainless steel, aluminum, brass, and copper) over a specially designed form/mandrel to create the shape you want. A flat circle or blank piece of metal is shaped around a preformed form/mandrel with a series of passes of a roller on a shaft or a tool housed under the arm. The form/mandrel can be deisgned for hundreds of different shapes.
The most common shapes are hollow dished, conical, hemispherical, and elliptical shapes. Edge configuration that includes beads and hems are also accomplished with metal spinning. Due to the nature of the process, most spinnings are round. In some instances spinning can be combined with other forming processes to produce slightly irregular shapes.
If the design change needs the inside diameter to decrease in size, the change can be relatively inexpensive. If the inside diameter increases, new tooling may have to be produced. If you need a prototype, this is the cheapest way to go; changes are the least expensive by the spinning process.
Spun parts can be made from many metals. The most common metals are aluminium, mild steel, stainless steel, galvanised steel, aluminised steel, brass and copper. Silver, zintel, iconel and other special metals or alloys can also be used.