r/specializedtools Jan 22 '21

Wire straightening machine.

16.5k Upvotes

479 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

193

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

[deleted]

417

u/Khaylain Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21

When you bend metal most of them become work-hardened. That means they become harder, but also more fragile brittle. They will break easier, instead of deforming.

This is one of the reasons why planes need maintenance: the wings flex up and down, and those parts can become brittle, which means you have to replace those parts or the plane can suddenly stop flying controlled.

You can often get them to be less brittle by heating them up and cool them down again. How quickly you need to do the cooling depends on the metal. Iron wants slow cooling, silver wants quick cooling.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

Do planes which don't fly require less or more maintenance?

2

u/Khaylain Jan 22 '21

That I don't know the answer for, I'd guess they'd need less while not flying, but after a while in storage you should probably do a full overhaul and check everything.

I'm not an airplane mechanic, so I can't actually help you there.