Maybe it was the rotary process that led to me being told the forgings were spun before being pressed. I've seen pictures of the 2 story press used to forge the wheels and it was pretty cool. I'm assuming the pictures and the process details below are the technologies that were used for the Auto Drag and Convo Pro designs?
CENTER LINE'S ROTARY FORGED TECHNOLOGY
Patent # 4,936,129
Center Line has designed a rotary forging press, the only one of its kind in the world, to compress a solid billet of aluminum with 4,000 tons of force, at 300 revolutions per minute. Not only does this process rearrange the aluminum molecules, but it also aligns them in a circular pattern thereby adding strength. As a result, the rotary forged wheel has a much tighter grain structure and is significantly lighter weight than a cast wheel which requires greater mass due to its inherent porosity.
1. The aluminum billet is run through the oven and heated to 900 degrees.
2. The nearly red-hot billets are transferred from the oven into the rotary forging press.
3. Spinning at 300 revolutions per minute, the billet is compressed into the die with 4,000 tons of force. This process forges the aluminum molecules into a tight grain structure arranged in a circular pattern thereby allowing Center Line to build incredibly light-weight, strong wheels.
4. The beginnings of a wheel in its forged state just as it is about to be removed from the rotary forging press.
5. Next, the aluminum forging must be split-spun to form the rim thereby completing the structure of a one-piece rotary forged wheel.
