Five Questions

©iStockphoto.com/tostphoto Five Questions

Radcliff Wire, Inc.

Five Questions provides an opportunity for SMI associate members to tell the spring industry about their company and the products and services they offer. In this edition, we talk with Charlie Radcliff, president of Radcliff Wire, Inc.

1|Can you tell us about Radcliff Wire and the products it offers to spring manufacturers? Since our start in 1959 serving the spring industry, Radcliff Wire has grown into a world class manufacturer of quality precision shaped and round wire.

We specialize in round and shaped wire made from beryllium copper, brass, phosphor bronze, nickel-silver, copper, aluminum, stainless steel, carbon steel and high nickel alloys for a wide variety of industry applications.

We have developed an unsurpassed reputation for service and dependability by meeting the stringent requirements of our customers.

2|What are the latest trends impacting wire distributors and what effect is it having on spring manufacturers? As a wire manufacturer, we purchase our raw materials from both wire mills and distributors. Materials for the majority of our short run jobs are supplied by local distributors. Larger production jobs require us to buy directly from mills. The high demand placed on domestic mills, as well as imported raw materials, continues to impact orders placed by spring manufacturers during this pandemic. Because of the unanticipated high demand, many of our distributors are finding stocking material to be very difficult, and in some cases they have been put on allocations by North American mills. Based on history and blanket orders, we stock many different materials and sizes that can be drawn down to a wire size needed for an order.

Due to the many different shapes, materials, odd tempers and special requirements, every order is made customer-specific.

3|What type of services do you offer to springmakers? Our services are based on our customer’s requirements. We have introduced innovative techniques in rolling and drawing wire as well as expanding our straight and cut abilities. In many cases, we work with our customers to engineer a shaped wire that performs better than the conventional wire method. For example, flat and square wire designs utilize more material density than traditional round wire springs. Our use of keystone or trapezoidal shaped wire allows springmakers to coil wire evenly by compensating for distortion. This basically stretches the outer or thicker area of a trapezoidal wire to equal the dimension of the inner portion on the spring while coiling.

4|What impact has COVID-19 had on your business and the customers you serve? As we have seen industry wide, many office employees still work from home and COVID-19 related absences have slowed production and lengthened delivery times.

The trickledown effect from the mines and mills to the springmakers has had a major impact. Material lead-time has gone out considerably. Sales are good and they continue to grow because of our ability to respond to industry needs. Except for minor difficulties, we are producing more product than we had ever expected in these times. As raw material and production costs continue to rise, our main challenge continues to be our ability to deliver in a timely manner.

5|Can you tell us about a recent challenge that you were able to solve for a customer? We recently had two medical customers that developed parts utilizing a very expensive wire EDM method.

One part was a small sized ½ round wire with a close tolerance groove to be used as a mandrel in a plastic medical part. We replaced the wire EDM part by developing a system that would roll, then draw wire into the shape they needed.

The other was a high quality custom shaped stainless steel square wire that required close tolerances with angled teeth that could line up with a sprocket making a miniature wheel turn in a surgical tool. This “ratchet-gear” allows the surgeon to have more leverage and precise control.

Both solutions made it more economically feasible. n

Charlie Radcliff Radcliff Wire, Inc. P.O. Box 603 Bristol, CT 06011-0603 Phone: 860-583-1305 cradcliff@radcliffwire.com www.radcliffwire.com