Delaware Capital Formation, Inc.

Memry Corporation

Paul Adler

Scott P Carpenter

Mark Cowell

Ming H Wu

Ronald W LaValley

Philippe Poncet

Jesse Perez

Neal Webb

The manufacture of seamless tubes in which the process includes providing an assembly having a metal tube blank, and an elongate metal core of shape memory effect material which is surrounded and contacted by the tube blank with a minimal gap. The assembly is elongated by mechanical working thereof at an elevated temperature until the tube blank has been converted into a tube of desired dimensions. After the elongation step, the core is subjected to a treatment which results in the core being in a stretched condition throughout its length, and does not substantially stretch the tube. The core is removed from the tube, and subsequently subjected to drawing passes over a nondeformable mandrel thereby refining the precision of diametric and wall dimensions with improved ID and OD surface quality. There is also decoring and reinserting to improve final dimensions which results in the ability to fabricate smaller, longer tubes.

Manufacture of metal tubes

A technique for producing soldering iron tips entails cutting clad wire into a plurality of segments, each segment comprising a core of material (such as copper) and an outer protective layer (such as stainless steel, Ni, Cr, or alloy thereof). Each clad wire segment is then shaped into a soldering iron tip by a cold or hot heading process, or other metal forming process. In the finished tip, the protective outer layer is disposed behind the working area of the tip, and serves to reduce the corrosion of the tip, and to improve the electrical conductivity between the tip and the soldering iron handle. A heater element can be formed at one end of the soldering iron tip from the same clad wire segment used to produce the tip itself, thereby ensuring good thermal transfer properties between the heater element and the tip. The invention also pertains to a technique for forming a protective outer layer on the working area of the tip. The technique comprises stamping caps from a thin strip or sheet of protective material, such as iron. More specifically, the caps are stamped out of the sheet using a die having a shape which resembles the shape of the working area of the soldering tip. The caps formed in this manner are then inserted over the ends of the tips, and attached thereto by applying brazing material to the formed cap or to the strip of material prior to forming the cap.

Soldering iron tips

Growing community of inventors

Livermore, CA, United States of America

Paul Adler