Feature Finishing
Deburrer helps ease production bottleneck
A solution from Surface Technology Products (Surtech) has helped a manufacturer of steel profiles, Thatcham based Procut, to remove a bottle neck in production caused by the delay needed for staff to remove hard slag from cut steel blanks
T
he issue has always been a prob- lem for Procut and when it won a long term order for 2,000 blanks per month this became unman- ageable. The company’s four oxy- propane CNC profiling machines are capable of cutting multiples of parts per day with quantities dependent upon material thickness and other parameters. However, the hard slag that remained on the blanks as a result of the cutting process was a difficult process to eradicate. The company’s shop floor staff had previously been removing the slag by hand, using hammer and chisel and seven-inch hand-held grinders and it this was adding an additional two weeks to the process.
Procut reviewed the market for a solution and found that Surtech was capable of providing a viable solution that could be supported with service. The first part of the solution was the acquisition of a belt linishing machine, for the cleaning of the parts and the removal of any scale. This was soon followed by a Lima 600L friction deburring machine for removing the hard slag from the cut blanks. The new friction deburring machine from Surtech now enables Procut to process its components at a rate similar to the actual cutting cycle to eliminate
any bottleneck. As Procut’s general manager, Chris Brown comments: “The friction deburrer is a fully enclosed unit that has an in-built extraction unit, so not only are potential respira- tory issues eradicated but the quality of the air in the workshop has improved. The same can be said of the linisher that also has an extraction unit attached for improved operator safety. “From a quality standpoint, the fric- tion deburrer creates a quality surface finish requiring little or no further dressing. Our customers are delighted with this, as it often removes any further finishing requirement on their part. We cut steel plate up to 300mm thick with many parts comfortably fitting into the friction deburrer. As an example of the productivity of the friction deburrer, we have just completed one order of 540 parts, previously this would take up to a full day to chip away any excess slag. With the friction debur- rer the processing time was just 1.5 hours.” The acquisition of the belt linisher, like the friction deburrer, was to limit the hand finishing the staff under- take. The Surtech belt linisher has the capacity to load
The abrasive belt linisher with a large table which can be loaded with blanks and
deburred with a manually operated contact wheel unit
a number of components on the bed and fettle them all in one process. This drastically saves time and resources whilst improving the surface finish. The company also conducts plough grinding for its customers ensuring guaranteed thickness and tolerances, so a relatively high standard of surface finish and flatness is required prior to plough grinding.
The Lindhorst friction deburrer with the drum door and the enclosure doors open
The steel profiling and grinding spe- cialist selected the Surtech linishing solution as it offered an innovative approach that allowed the operator to load small batches of parts that could all be completed in one process. Incorporating a clamping block for asserting downward linishing pressure on the components, the Surtech solu- tion ensures the linisher and not the operator does the work. Brown concludes: “We are delighted with the two machines. They have saved us on lead times, labour require- ment and costs whilst also improving our component quality. Additionally, the two machines have improved the working environment. We cannot praise the machines enough.”
Surtech T: 0121 359 4322
www.surtech.co.uk Enter 320
Solution quadruples tool life and cuts need for manual finishing A
pproached by Mayr Faserverbundtechnik to help optimise milling operations on a composite component, Mapal, a supplier of cut- ting tools for precision machining, developed a solution that quadrupled tool life, significantly reduced machining time and eliminated a need for manual reworking and finishing.
For the components used in the new design
of an operating table, CFRP composite was the ideal choice of material as it’s excep- tionally strong, lightweight and transparent to X-rays. However, machining this mater- ial presents significant challenges, including difficulties in obtaining good tool life and in combining a high machining rate with a quality finish. These were the challenges faced by Mayr Faserverbundtechnik in the production of a tongue-shaped composite component that plays a key role in the new operating table. This requires two milling operations, which are carried out in two clamping
Factory Equipment JANUARY 2013
positions on a machining centre with an SK40 spindle. The first operation trims the periphery of the component, while the second mills two guide slots. Before it approached Mapal, Mayr Faserverbund technik was using two milling tools – a solid carbide router for roughing and a PCD end mill for finishing. The tool life was just 45 components and the surface quality obtained was so poor that additional manual reworking and finishing was needed, and the machining time per component was more than seven minutes. The new machining process from Mapal uses an OptiMill-Composite-Speed diamond-coated solid carbide end mill with eight cutting edges, which allows all milling operations on the component to be completed in a single machining step. The novel geometry of the tool and serrations in the cutting edges ensure optimal chip removal and, therefore, permit high machining rates to be achieved. Tool life has been increased from 45 to 200 parts, while machining time has
been reduced by 32 per cent. Mapal
T: 01788 574700
www.mapal.com Enter 321 23
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