ADJUSTABLE WRENCH

DR. IZWAN BIN ISMAIL | BFF 2423 MANUFACURING PROCESSES | FACULTY OF MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING

Introduction
Every product have their various manufacturing processes, materials
being processed, tools and equipment with optimal process plan using
proper precautions and specified safety rules to avoid accidents.
The adjustable wrench is a with a "jaw" of adjustable width. This
wrench design are allowing it use on different sizes of fastener head
such as nut and bolt rather than just one fastener, as with a conventional
fixed spanner.

Flow Chart

Manufacturing Process

Heat Treatment Hardening

& Tempering

Raw Materials

Machining - Broaching
Broaching operation is used to machine accurate
holes.
A broach is a long multi-tooth cutting tool with
successively deeper cuts.
Broaching can produce parts with very good
surface finish and dimensional accuracy.
There are two major types of broaches, the push
broach and the pull broach. A second division is
internal and external broaches.
Maximum force, Fmax [kg] = A[mm2] *
re [kg/mm2] * n
(Composition of 6150 Chromium-Vanadium Steel, 2009)

Polishing
Cutting
Steel rods are cut into short lengths, called billets, and each one is passed
through an induction heating coil which uses electromagnetism to heat the
metal to about 1000 degrees Celsius.
Dimension for the stock:
Total Length: 170mm

Polishing
One finishing loose abrasive process, used to generate surfaces with very
high tolerances in geometry, surface integrity, and roughness
characteristics.
Remove small elements of a surface and make them smooth.
This smoothness is obtained by rubbing the surface with the polishing
particles with a rotating disk.

Width: 10mm

Thickness: 10.5mm

Punching

Length for the Head part: 50mm

A sheet metal forming process that uses various type of punch press to exert
the force to a punch via shearing.
Punching force required for the hole of adjustable wrench is

Width for the Head part: 40mm

Forging and heat trimming process

1.

Heat the chromium-vanadium alloy steels up to 1150C.

2.

Send to the machine with a die which has the shape of

adjustable wrench.

3.
4.

Compress the raw material on the adjustable wrench die with

hammer
Heat trimming process is carried out to remove the surplus
steel

a) Hardening process
Quenching medium oil
Heating temperature approximately
850oc
Heating time 1 min
(Thermal processes I Heat
Treatments Hardening, 2015)

Surface Treatment
i. Phosphating process can be defined as the treatment of metal surface and
electrically non- conducting surface coating of insoluble phosphate which
is contiguous and adherent to the underlying metal and is considerably
more absorptive than the metal.
ii. Immersion Phosphating Process is used.
Iron phosphate coating was choose for our application. It is because:i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.

F=0.7tLUTS
F=0.7 0.006 0.012 940 106
F=148.84103 N
Characteristics

Conditions

Taper angle of punch,

10, 13 and 20

Step height of die, h

0.5, 0.7, 0.9 and 1.1 mm

Punch

SKD 11, VC coating

Die

SKD 11, no coating

Punching speed

0.08 mm/s

Lubrication

Rust prevention oil

Lighter in weight
More economical
No heat is require for the liquid in tank
None prephosphate conditioners required
Most of the adjustable wrench was kept in a toolbox which is a lowcorrosion environment so iron phosphate coating was more than
enough.

Assembly

= 0.22F = 1000

10

0.2210
+ 3160

=789MN

Normalizing

Laser
Marking
crave the reading of the adjusting
wrench

Assumption:
f = 1000MPa

b) Tempering process
Heating temperature
approximately 280oc
Heating time 1 min

Coining
- A high precision stamping process to induce plastic deformation of the
metal work piece.
- It can produce finer and detailed surface finish with lower cost
production.
- Therefore, the letters on the surface of the adjustable wrench can
be produce via this coining process.

References
1. Manufacturing Process Series. Adjustable Wrench. (2014). Bahco. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1yPO1TVG1Y

2. Composition of 6150 Chromium-Vanadium Steel. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Normalized-6150-ChromiumVanadium-Steel/

3. Thermal processes I Heat Treatments Hardening / Tempering Making steel hard and wear resistant. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.hst.nl/upload/file/Downloads/Leaflet Harden-Veredelen UK.pdf