November 2007 Edition

WORKHOLDING

Getting a Grip on Workholding

As the workload increased, a shop needed better options in workholding. With the right manufacturer team, it found success.

Carolina Precision Components, Valdese, NC, a manufacturer of valves and various flow control mechanisms, saw a dramatic rise in its workloads and needed a workholding system to keep up with the demand.

"We needed a way to increase capacity without buying another machining center," Randy Walker, the company president, said. "We saw the folks from Advanced Machine & Engineering, Rockford, IL, at IMTS and discussed our application with Alvin Goellner, one of their applications engineers. His knowledge and grasp of our problem helped us from the outset."

The shop used standard vises to hold workpieces, including various iron castings, and Dura-Bar continuous cast iron stock; steel forgings; and aluminum billets. Each workpiece was positioned in a vise, machined, repositioned, checked, and machined again. Each time the workpiece was touched, it caused delays and cost the company in both dollars and efficiency.

Handling Elimination

Goellner, and his team from Advanced Machine, suggested their company's Triag compact clamping system with an integrated trunnion. The clamping system allows continuous three-sided machining and eliminates much of the handling and machine downtime used by the vises.

Since the Triag system could be run with a standard rotary indexer, the implementation of the clamping system solution immediately interested Walker and his team at Carolina.

"We saw the advantages of this system, compared to the others we were considering. Compared to how we were doing things at that time, it was a big improvement. The decision to go with the clamping system was pretty easy, at that point," he said.

The Triag system, in this application of modular clamping, is comprised of a series of clamps affixed to base rails by alignment pins. As needed, special jaws or dedicated fixtures can also be attached to the rails, anchored to the T-slots and located by use of alignment pins in the positioning holes.

Triple Play

According to Mike Smith, Carolina's vice president and general manager, the Advanced Machine system lets each workpiece be machined on three sides with no stoppages.

"On any square block, even large asymmetrical iron castings, we can set up the workpieces and cut in two ops what once took six. Just the time saved in handling is substantial."

Smith also said Carolina runs part sizes ranging from 3/4"×1" square blocks up to 3"×4"×8" pieces, and the Triag system accommodates all of them. The gripper holes designed into the tapped jaw face and the four-point carbide grippers are reliable in positioning even the heaviest workpieces, he said.

"We worked with Alvin Goellner and the folks at Advanced on developing these grippers. They really do the job for us."

Since the installation of the seven Triag systems on Carolina's Fadal VMCs, Walker said his company is planning to install the same systems on two Haas VMCs the company recently purchased. He also said the service and after-sale follow-up from Goellner and his team at Advanced made an impression on him.

Team Dedication

"They took an interest in our business. We could tell Goellner's Advanced Machine team wanted to make a difference in how we got things done here. The results have been outstanding."

Since the installation of the clamping system, Walker has tracked Carolina's productivity. His statistics show the company's productivity in processes using the clamping system rose from 500 pieces per month to between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces per month on average.

"For some of our hydraulic valve parts, depending on the complexity of the machining, we're realizing between 20 percent and 40 percent reduction in setup and cycle times, plus we're holding our tolerances much better.

"The load bearing capabilities of the Triag system, combined with its interface to any rotary indexer in the shop, makes it a real workhorse for us," Walker said. "We work with some very asymmetrical, heavy parts that often dislodged from the old vise system we were using.

"Triag's modular clamping system allows for small quantities of larger parts or bigger batches of smaller parts to be fixtured quickly and accurately. Plus, the overall stability of the system means our accuracies are never compromised by the part symmetry or weight."

Advanced Machine & Engineering

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