A skiving machine is used in an industrial setting to cut or shave the edge of a moving strip of material into a desired shape or to create cross-sections of stock. Also called scarfing machines, skiving machines are commonly used in applications where uniform sizes and shapes are needed but are not obtainable using other manufacturing processes, such as cold rolling. Although skiving machines are most commonly used in the process of metalworking, they also see a significant amount of use in the edge shaping of leather and similar materials.

The process of using a skiving machine is called skiving or skivetek. Using a tungsten carbide blade, the skiving machine can cut metal and other materials with greater precision than many machine tools. Advances in the technology used in skiving machine parts has made these machine tools easier to use by introducing a floating blade system that moves both the blade and the material to achieve uniform sized cuts, rather than the older style machines that required careful adjustments of the stock to the blade to achieve the same effect.

Advances in the technology used in modern skiving processes have also made it possible to plane metal and other materials at slower speeds than were attainable in the past. Using vibration to simulate an increase in speed of the moving stock, the modern skiving machine is able to cut materials that would not have been possible in early machine tool shops. This ability to cut metal at a slower speed makes it possible to utilize the skiving machine in conjunction with low-speed welding on assembly lines.

Skiving machines are commonly used in the manufacture of automobile parts, including seat belt springs and hose clamps. These machines are also used to bevel the edges of metals used in the manufacture of pipes and tubing. This beveling allows the tubing product to be seam-welded in a way that avoids pinholes in the final product.

The electronic supply industry uses the skiving machine to create highly effective heat sinks. The skiving machine's cutting abilities are why these heat sinks can be made from a single piece of metal, thus allowing the heat sinks to transfer and dissipate heat more effectively. The process of skiving leaves the fins of the heat sink with a roughened texture that creates a greater surface area and further enhances heat dispersal.

Skived Heat Sinks

Skived copper heat sinks offer the maximum heat dissipation in applications that have high airflow and small space. The thermal conductivity of copper (~400 W/m-K) is the highest among all the commercial metals, and the skiving technology allows the heat sinks to have very thin fins, high aspect ratio and high fin density. Because the fins are an integral part of the base, skived copper heat sinks provide the best possible thermal conductivity between the fins and the base. When optimized to specific applications, skived copper heat sinks offer outstanding performance over any other thermal solutions within the small space. In some applications, the skiving technology is also the most cost-effective and reliable method of producing heat sinks that meet high thermal demands.Skived heat sinks are manufactured by peeling fins from a bar of solid copper or aluminum, using a sharp and accurately controlled blade tool. The tool shaves a small thickness of the material, lifts it up and bends it vertically to form the fin. The final heat sink can be machined using normal fabrication techniques, such as CNC machining. Skived heat sinks require minimal tooling cost, which makes it a cost effective solution. Skived heat sinks can also be customized with embedded heat pipes to further improve performance.