Carbon steel wire is of non-alloy wire and its manufacturing technique is conventional as follows.

Sample:
High carbon spring steel wire
Target wire size of 1.00mm with T/S 1960-2300 Mpa

Our essential process:
Step 1: Confirm the steel wire rods with grade of 70# or 72A# as customer required from China qualified steel plants.

Step 2: Confirm the former working process of annealing, patenting and phosphating are qualified for following wire drawing.

Step 3: Confirm the inlet wire diameter should be 3.10 mm, since the general compression ratio controlled in 90-95% is preferable for carbon spring wire.

Step 4: Confirm the dies in the tank with right sizes and rows of arrangement for wire drawing.

Step 5: The spring wire straightener should be installed in the wet wire drawing machine in order to achieve the perfect straightness circle.

It is related to manufacturing technology and we give an illustration as follows.

Sample:
Stainless steel spring wire (SS 304H)
Target wire size of 0.20mm with T/S 2050-2400 Mpa

Our essential process:
Step 1: Confirm the wire rods with grade of SS 304 or SS 304H and the carbon content of 0.06-0.08% in percentage as customer required from China qualified stainless steel plant.

Step 2: Confirm the former working process of pickling and annealing are qualified for following wire drawing.

Step 3: Confirm the inlet wire diameter should be 0.60mm, since the general compression ratio controlled at 80-90% is preferable for SS spring wires.

Step 3: Confirm the dies is the right choice as we required, including the dies material, dies compression angle and dies belt length ratio.

Step 4: Confirm the dies in the tank with righ sizes and rows of arrangement for wire drawing. For instance, 0.20→0.22→0.24→0.27→0.30→0.34→0.38→0.43→0.48→0.54 (totally 10 dies in use is better)

Step 5: The spring wire straightener should be installed in the wire drawing machine in order to achieve the perfect straightness circle.

Since the last three dies (0.20/0.22/0.24) are really more important for final product, it is necessary for us to keep close observation and timely replace qualified dies during manufacturing.

Above is just part of SS spring wire technical knowledge in working, and honestly hope it could be helpful to anyone if require.

(A) Alloy and non-alloy elements
Carbon steel wire has almost non-alloy elements mainly for C, Si, Mn, S, and P.
However, stainless steel wire has various alloy elements especially for Cr and Ni that occupy 12% Minimum in percentage.
Various chemical elements lead to large discrepancy on mechanical property and working process for final use.

(B) Corrosion resistance
Carbon steel wire apparently shows weak anti-corrosion ability due to its higher carbon component. In order to avoid any rust, slushing oil is necessarily in conventional use for un-galvanized carbon wires during storage and transportation.
On the other hand, stainless steel wire has quite stronger anti-corrosion ability to meet market consumption, especially for SS 300 series.

(C) Magnetism
Carbon steel wire possesses obviously strong magnetism. Stainless steel wire has none or weak magnetism for both SS 200 series and 300 series, but there is distinct magnetism for SS 400 series on account of its martensitic structure.

(D) Wire surface
Carbon steel wire surface is normally black and shiny, however stainless steel wire is always in silver bright color (Some part of SS wires with dull surface for special application) due to its abundant alloy elements involved, as well as its clearly smooth surface.

SS 201 and 202 are both of high manganese (Mn) stainless steel, in which much manganese come into use instead of nickel (Ni) and get the nearly same effect as 304 in some weakly anticorrosion environment. Additionally, due to the cheaper cost, SS 200 series still remain the competitive advantage to satisfy those certain needs in market.

SS 301,304 and 316 are all of classic stainless steel, who have been enjoyed most popularity and widely used in world.

SS 200 Series and SS 300 series are belonged to Austenite structure with nonmagnetic or weakly magnetic property, which is distinguished from SS 400 series who are of Martensitic structure with strong magnetism.