Woodruff Keys

Woodruff keys are semicircular feather keys which are inserted into the grooves of shafts. Due to the semicircular shape of the Woodruff keys, they sit firmly in the shaft. Steel or stainless steel is used in their manufacture.

1. Woodruff keys
2. Our range of Woodruff key - buy online in our Online Shop
3. The production of Woodruff keys
4. Similar websites around the topic Woodruff key

Woodruff keys are one of the most important locking elements in modern drive technology besides the normal feather keys. Without Woodruff keys, torque transmission from shaft and hub would no longer be possible. Every day the industry needs thousands of Woodruff keys, which have to be installed in technical plants and machine parts to make drives safe and to enable power transmissions with a predetermined breaking point, i.e. overload protection. In this article we would like to give you more information about Woodruff keys made of steel or stainless steel and go into detail about the installation, i.e. the assembly of the springs. Furthermore, we would like to go into more detail about the shape, as well as the stock of Woodruff keys and of course about the production of such springs and the choice of material. As always, we would like to start with the assembly of Woodruff keys. The Woodruff key is visibly different from a normal key. The normal feather key has a slim, almost square elongated body, which is usually rounded at the ends. The grooves for such keys are milled into the shaft or axle using an end mill. With the Woodruff key the position is slightly different. It has a semicircular body and, when mounted in a shaft or axle, must be inserted into a semicircular recess, which is made with a side milling cutter. The Woodruff key is very stable due to its very deep seat in the shaft and can therefore absorb high forces. Thus the Woodruff key ensures torque transmission and is also an important overload protection component which must shear off if the torque exceeds a certain value on the shaft. This prevents major damage to the shaft and hub and the Woodruff key only needs to be replaced once with a new one. The material used for Woodruff keys today is almost exclusively steel. However, especially on machines in the food industry and other highly sensitive areas, there are almost always components that have to be made of stainless steel. Thus, V2A or V4A are always used as alloys for stainless steel Woodruff keys. V2A stainless steel is almost always sufficient because this alloy is resistant to water. However, if you want to install disc springs on boats and yachts or in the chemical industry, you should always use and install V4A stainless steel alloys.

Our range of Woodruff key - buy online in our Online Shop

In recent years, the Woodruff keys has enjoyed a strong career. The sales of Woodruff keys have increased dramatically, because with the constant development of the transmission technology of torques of shafts and axles the possibilities have become more and more sophisticated and better. But not only the industry has discovered this possibility of inexpensive securing, but also more and more private users and hobbyists have discovered the Woodruff keys made of steel or stainless steel for themselves. So the increasing demand is due to this and the online shops have to be able to meet the increasing demand. So we have added Woodruff keys to our online shop and offer our customers from Germany and the rest of Europe the possibility to buy their Woodruff keys quickly and easily in our online shop. To ensure that this purchasing process is secure in the long term, we have decided to switch the entire domain to the secure SSL certificate. This has the exclusive advantage that all your data is securely stored with us, so that your data cannot be accessed by third parties when exporting data to our merchandise management system. While we are already on the subject of shopping, please let us lose a few words that are related to the ordering process if you want to buy your stainless steel or steel Woodruff key rings from us. We would also like to explain the ordering sections to you. Now that you are on our website, you can put together all the products you need for your building project. To do so, put all the parts you need into the shopping basket. If this order section is completed, you can now create your customer account and enter all your data and your email address. If you want to finish shopping and pay for all items, just follow the shop instructions while logged in, which will guide you through the menu. At some point you will see the payment options that you can use. Choose the best payment for you and confirm the payment by pressing the "Pay" button. If the payment process was successful, you will automatically receive an order confirmation email in which you can see exactly how many Woodruff key washers you have purchased in the steel or stainless steel version. Now we can compile your order promptly in our warehouse and send it to your stored address. Your order should arrive after a few days.

The production of Woodruff keys

As always, we would like to return to the production of feather keys or Woodruff keys in the last article. For all those who work with Woodruff keys every day, it is clear how these springs are used in the shaft-hub combination in a positive connection and how these springs are constructed. But many people who work with these Woodruff keys every day do not know anything about how they can be manufactured or produced. Also in this article we will give you a rough explanation of the production process, so that you can understand, at least in brief, how such locking elements are produced thousands of times a day on modern machines. As already mentioned, highly modern and complex machines are used today to produce Woodruff keys. The factor of economy and effectiveness is always in the foreground, so that the basic conditions are right. Since these springs must have a fitting accuracy so that the parts must also fit exactly into the disc groove as a fit later on, the thickness of the spring is a decisive factor. To enable efficient production, water jet cutting machines or laser systems are usually used to cut the Woodruff keys out of a shim. These plates are already industrially ground to a certain thickness, which the later Woodruff key must have in order to fit into the intended groove. We now place a bass plate on the waterjet cutting machine and all parameters have been loaded on the machine via the CNC program, so production can begin. Since the sheet metal is usually of a srh large size, thousands of Woodruff keys can be cut from it. The waterjet head now cuts one spring for the next out of the fitting plate and the finished springs then fall into the collecting tray provided. When the whole plate is cut out, the springs are removed and all almost finished Woodruff keys can be collected and are now, as some of them still have sharp edges, put into a trovalizer. In this part are so-called grinding stones, which are thousandfold present and the drum rotates. Thus all edges are broken and ground against each other. After a certain time, the finished disc springs made of metal, steel or stainless steel can be removed from the Trovalisator and stored in our warehouse. If an order for a Woodruff key arrives from you, it can be packed and shipped to you.