Beijing Steel Wire Factory (predecessor of Gitane) successfully trial produced high-speed tool steel wire despite difficulties faced by employees

High speed tool steel is an excellent advanced alloy steel for manufacturing high-speed cutting tools, with high hardness and strong wear resistance. However, producing this type of steel wire has always been a key technology that steel wire factories have struggled to master for a long time. At the beginning of this year, the factory party committee made a plan to seize this high ground. When organizing the trial production, some people said, "This equipment cannot produce new products, and if it is not done well, it will also damage old products." Most employees do not agree with this opinion and unanimously believe that "as long as they dare to fight against difficulties and correctly exert their subjective initiative, they will definitely succeed." With the support of the Party committee, they attach great importance to this experiment. Everyone understands that difficulties will inevitably arise and must be taken seriously. Everyone holds the determination of 'only advancing, not retreating' and conducts repeated experiments.

 
Some of the 120 high-speed steel wires in the trial production broke as soon as they were pressed; Some are hard when pressed, but they break when pulled through the mold. It's not enough to just turn off the fire once, so turn off the fire again. Factory director Zhang Ruiyong personally researched and searched for a solution to the problem of steel wire breakage. He tried to burn the steel head red before pulling it, although the steel was hot, it was not easy to break; Soak the steel sheet in hydrochloric acid again to damage it, and use a hand twisting machine to pull and a rolling machine to press it, but it still breaks. After dozens of experiments, we finally came up with a solution: fully utilizing the furnace during annealing and combining it with hydrochloric acid treatment, finally solving the problem.

 
During the trial production process, worker Sun Zhi, veteran workers, technicians, and others worked together to study and improve technical measures such as annealing. They first tested with a furnace, then with an electric furnace, and finally successfully trial produced high-speed tool steel wire. The user feedback was good after use, which solved the urgent production needs.