Our Process

Our Process

Our Process

Our Process

Webster & Horsfall provide a high quality manufacturing process that reflects our experience, expertise and integrity.

Our highly skilled team use state of the art machinery to create products of the highest quality. We are committed to ethical practice and offset our carbon footprint through a variety of conservation projects that help preserve and protect the planet.

We always purchase steel from proven sources and our long established technical partnerships satisfy our demands for purity, surface finish, exactness of analysis and consistency of microstructure.

Spring Wire for Modern Manufacturing

Today’s spring manufacturers require spring wire that is tailor made for their own designs of ever increasing complexity and it must meet the exacting specifications of their products. The spring wire must run trouble free, however severe the forming process and it must provide indefinite fatigue life when the springs are in service.

Steel manufacturers themselves for over a century, Webster & Horsfall now buy their requirements from specialist British and continental mills. They have a long standing experience of them. The insistence on purity, perfection of surface finish, and exactness of analyses and micro structure sets a standard of excellence without which the present performance of spring materials would be impossible.

The minimum size of ordinary production is .004″. This, 0.1mm, is the bottom of the range. Between these extremes an infinite variety of round, shaped and flattened wire can be produced, exact to size where needed.

Wire Drawing Process

Despite the spanning of three centuries the procedures of wire drawing have only been altered by the use of more durable tools and machinery. With wear resistant dies, electric power and improved transmission techniques, high speeds and long runs have been possible. Nowadays the operator has an immense amount of equipment at their disposal.

The individual’s responsibility is high and the skill required in the handling of hard wire is as great as ever it was. Tradition comes into it and, like artistic talent, many wire drawers believe that the skills they need are inherited. Experience at Penns and Hay Mills supports this view and our best wire drawers so often have belonged to families who have long connections with the company.

The skill of a fine wire drawer handling, say, .010 music wire is obvious but however great the skill, he will be a failure without the attitude of mind and the infinite patience which all the true wire drawers possess. They also need critical judgment, intuition and quick reactions. Recognition of ability, supported by well established training procedures ensures the perpetuation of our skills for future generations.

The testers stand between the production departments and the customers. They are the protectors of both, by ensuring total compliance to the customer’s order. They are equipped with modern apparatus for physical testing to meet all wire specifications in general use, including 200% nondestructive testing. This involves stringent control procedures with the testing stations linked to the laboratory who have technical supervision of all production.

The laboratory is also a service department for customers and there is a record system that spans many years to give invaluable technical support data.

Spring Wire Production Capacity

Wire capacity is about 10,000 tons a year, but Webster and Horsfall sales are determined by the numbers and variety of the orders rather than their weight. Most of our orders are well under 50 kgs.

Whether it’s an order of an ounce, or a few feet of spring wire, the orders will have the same meticulous care as all others.

Our associate company Latch & Batchelor, specialists in mining ropes, require round and intricate shaped wire of the highest integrity. Latch & Batchelor also supply stainless steel rope and offer a complete range of engineering rope with all the associated services. Both companies are approved with British Coal and many other quality assurance authorities, including the Ministry of Defence and Civil Aviation Authority.

Hay Mill’s wire is found in most plants and machinery; mechanical equipment can hardly operate without it and its usage is general in motor cars, aircraft, the electronics and electrical industries, and weaponry. Webster & Horsfall is the only British manufacturer still supplying piano wire on any scale. We also produce wire to the minutae of perfection required for surgical needs.

The lists of usage of high grade wire of all classes, kinds and analyses, is endless and is ever increasing. Our company has met and will continue to meet all demands placed upon it for quality wire.

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