At Elgiloy Specialty Metals, quality isn’t optional — it’s engineered into every wire we produce. This is especially true for wire used in critical applications across industries such as medical devices, aerospace, chemical processing, safety systems, and high-pressure gas valves. When lives and mission-critical systems depend on performance, there’s no room for compromise.

One key step that sets us apart is our wire shaving and polishing process — a critical operation to ensure surface defects introduced during prior hot working processes are removed before conversion to round, flat or shaped wire.

What Is Wire Shaving?

A coil of wire received from the mill in the hot worked condition is inspected to determine if defects are present. If defects are found the maximum defect depth is determined.

ESM utilizes a rotary shaver and / or polisher to mechanically remove the surface of the wire and eliminate all the defects that were found.

Mechanical removal of these defects is essential to ensure the integrity of the wire and provide reliability and improve the life of the wire in demanding environments and critical applications such as aerospace fasteners, orthopedic implants, subsea safety valves and any other critical applicationswhere failure is not an option.

Why We Shave: Two Key Reasons

At Elgiloy, the decision to shave or not to shave wire is based on its intended end use. If the wire is destined for a high-stakes application — like a medical implant or aerospace spring — it must meet the highest standards of cleanliness and defect tolerance.

We shave our wire to:

1. Remove Oxide and Surface Contamination

Wire rod can develop an oxide layer during hot working and subsequent heat treatment operations. Pickling can remove surface oxide but does not always remove the layer where oxide has penetrated to surface.

This oxide layer can result in cracks or failures during forming operations, reduced strength, lower corrosion resistance and reduced fatigue strength and can lead to premature failure.

Shaving removes all oxide scale and any layer that penetrates the surface.

resulting in a clean, contamination-free wire ideal for sensitive applications.

2. Eliminate Surface Defects from Hot Rolling

Hot rolling — a standard step in wire production — can introduce minute cracks, laps, seams, and other detrimental surface defects. While they may seem insignificant, these imperfections can act as stress concentrators, drastically reducing a part’s fatigue life and structural integrity.

Our shaving process effectively removes these flaws, revealing a uniform, defect-free surface. This is especially crucial for precision springs and dynamic load-bearing components, where even the smallest defect can cause premature failure.

The Result: Clean, High-Performance Wire

The payoff of shaving is measurable. Shaved wire offers:

• Superior fatigue resistance
• Improved surface integrity
• Enhanced consistency in performance
• Greater reliability in mission-critical applications

For customers in industries where failure isn’t an option, our shaved wire provides peace of mind and proven performance — part after part, batch after batch.

About Elgiloy Specialty Metals

Elgiloy Specialty Metals is a trusted supplier of standard and custom high-performance alloy wire and strip. With a long history of serving demanding industries, we’re proud to provide materials that meet the toughest specifications — and exceed expectations.

Have questions about whether shaved wire is right for your application?

Contact our team today or request a quote to learn more about our wire shaving capabilities and high-performance alloy solutions.