Mechanical machining from A to Z: the GBZ vocabulary

Are you sure you know the meaning of all the words in the world of machining? Let’s review the main terms of our industry together and find out what GBZ can do for your project.

“Words are important’: it may sound like a cliché, but in our industry, it can be the discriminating factor in the success of an order. Specialist vocabulary helps us to define our customers’ needs and combine the most suitable processes and treatments to meet them.

Let’s take a look at GBZ’s vocabulary together!

Turning

For more than thirty years, turning has been at the heart of our machining operations: it is an industrial production process obtained by metal chips removal. The workpiece being turned is subjected to a basically rectilinear motion of the tool (in milling and drilling, the tool has a rotary motion instead). The cutting edge of the tool penetrates the workpiece material and removes the excess, thus forming chips.

Milling

Milling is a material removal machining that allows a wide range of surfaces to be obtained through the action of a cutting tool with a defined geometry. The most important characteristics of machining by milling are high precision and good surface finish of the finished product; a good milling machine can produce parts with sub-micron tolerances and a mirror-like surface.

Drilling to drawing

Drilling is a type of machining whereby holes can be drilled into the material (or the shape and size of the holes can be changed) using a tool equipped with a rotary cutting motion which advances in the direction of the axis of the cutting motion.

Broaching

Broaching is a work phase that carries out chips removal using the broach, a tool consisting of a series of cutting edges that progressively removes material until the required profile and dimensions are obtained. This machining allows complex profiles to be produced very quickly and ensures a high level of precision and finish.

Hobbing

Hobbing is a machining operation that uses machine tools known as hobbing machines to produce cogwheels with external teeth and grooved profiles.

Chrome plating

Chrome plating is a surface treatment that deposits a chrome coating with a thickness of 0.005 to 1 mm on aluminum alloys and standard metal alloys (iron, stainless steel, copper, brass). The main qualities of this coating are high wear resistance, both dry and with lubricant, by compression or abrasive action, and high resistance to chemicals.

Galvanizing

Galvanizing is the process by which a zinc coating is applied to a metal product, usually steel, to protect it from galvanic corrosion.

Nickel plating

Nickel plating is a surface treatment to which certain materials may be subjected. The purpose of this treatment is to modify the surface characteristics of the processed materials, enhancing hardness, resistance to external agents, etc.

Phosphating

Phosphating is a chemical process by which the surface of a metallic material is altered, creating phosphate crystals chemically bonded to the substrate so as to exploit the properties of these compounds to improve corrosion resistance and promote adhesion of the subsequent paint.

Burnishing

Burnishing is the colouring of the surface of a metal using various methods and is intended to provide protection against oxidation as well as to improve its appearance.

Plasma coating

With plasma coating, powders or mixtures of ceramic powders such as stainless steel, nickel/aluminum, tungsten carbide, zinc and chromium oxide are melted in a plasma torch and applied to the sandblasted metal surface. This increases hardness, sliding properties, non-stick properties and tensile strength.

Metallisation

The operation of adhering a metallic coating to the surface of a piece of non-metallic material for protective, decorative or functional purposes.

Anodising

Anodising is an electrochemical process by which a protective layer of oxide is formed on the surface of the metal to be treated. Anodising is carried out to increase surface features, both technical and aesthetic.

Production optimization

One of our keywords: not only do we manufacture high-quality components and spare parts for industry, but we also provide our customers with support in the management of production and non-production processes, aiming to optimize the entire order flow.

Heat treatment

By heat treatment we mean the thermal cycle carried out under predetermined conditions and temperatures followed by more or less slow cooling, with the aim of making a metal or a metal alloy (usually steel) take on those crystalline structures that give it certain mechanical and/or technological characteristics.

A rich vocabulary of possibilities for your projects, which is skilfully blended to find the most suitable solution.

If you want to know what we can do for you, contact us!