Our customer is an OEM manufacturer of welding equipment.
Brief
The work holding requirement is for a lathe. Our customer needs a chuck that expands to grip the inner diameter of welding shield caps so they can finish-turn its rough outer shape.
Northfield Solution
A Highly-Specialized, 4.500” Diameter Northfield Collet Chuck
Shown here is a highly-specialized, 4.500” diameter, Northfield Collet Chuck with custom top tooling mounted.
As the chuck’s internal diameter collet expands, it also acts to pull the part down and onto its outer banking surface shown in the photo at the right. This insures repeatable location onto the datum surface, saving time and reducing error.
This is just one of many examples of our work across a variety of industries and machining situations. Do you have a project that requires a custom solution? Then get in touch with our team and chat with a Northfield engineer to see how we can help solve your problem. Contact Northfield – Northfield or call – Phone: (516) 431-1112.
Our customer builds and supplies complete machine tooling solutions. They are working with the Northfield engineers to develop a skim cutting solution for multiple sized parts.
Brief & Challenge
The workpieces are a range of titanium parts that require skim cutting, some need to be held by the outer diameter and some on the inner diameter. The main challenge is achieving this with a single chuck.
Solution
Northfield Precision Model 650 Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck
A CNC and process automation customer required custom work holding solution for Grinding the outer diameter of their unique sapphire rods.
Challenge
The main challenge for the Northfield team is holding the rods well enough without damaging them or creating micro fractures in the material. Additionally, delivering the trademark repeatability and accuracy.
Brass Work Holding – Total Indicator Reading
Solution
The work holding solution is a Northfield model DPH-400, with custom Brass Work Holding Jaws. The top tooling consists of three parts.
Hardened and ground sub jaws
A separate center button stop
Precision ground brass inserts mounted to the sub jaws
This setup ensures accuracy and repeatability whilst grinding the outer diameter to the required size.
Custom Brass Jaws Chuck
The use of brass answers the customers need to hold their unique sapphire rod without damaging it. Brass chuck jaws prevent sliding and are very corrosion resistance, meaning there are also tough enough to operate in a grinding environment.
This project is for an international metal cutting solutions provider. They required custom jaws that can hold various sized drill tips.
The Challenge:
The work holding jaws all need to have ‘vee-block’ type insert-pads to securely hold a variety of square parts with our trademark accuracy.
Model 870 Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck (.0001 TIR) with custom ‘square’ top tooling.
Solution:
Introducing our Model 870 Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck (.0001 TIR). This air-actuated chuck has two moving jaws for gripping the square or rectangular parts.
The drill tips stop on the axial locator (mounted to the face of the chuck), and the Insert Pads (mounted in their sub jaws) clamp down on the outer diameter of each drill tip before grinding its shank.
Extra Feature:
The Insert-Pad and Sub-Jaw design to allows for quick changeover between sizes.
High precision custom work holding, finishing all part machining operations in only two setups. Reducing error and saving time.
Brief:
Our Customer is a well-established high precision machine and automation provider. They required a custom solution to complete all machining operation in two steps.
Work holding on a rotary table within a 5-axis machine.
A chuck with custom hardened jaws to grip the finished side of the work piece from the first step.
Read on to see how the Northfield engineers solved this problem…
Northfield Precision Model 450W Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck (0.0001” TIR) with custom top tooling attached.
Northfield Precision Model 450W Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck (0.0001” TIR) with custom top tooling attached
The first chuck is based on the 450W Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck, for mounting to a rotary table for 5 axis machining of the first portion of the final product.
The custom top jaws are hardened and ground to size before coating with 150. Grit diamond. This ensures a good grip on the customers rough turned blank.
Additionally,
Northfield work holding solutions include air detect axial locators. This in this case, 3 air ports on the 3-part banking surfaces. Ensuring positive, part seat confirmation before the machining process begins.
Step 2:
Northfield Precision Model 470W Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck (0.0001” TIR) with custom top tooling attached.
Northfield Precision Model 470W Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck (0.0001” TIR) with custom top tooling attached.
The second stage of the process involves gripping the finished side of the part from the first step without damaging, to finish the second step.
To accomplish this, we added custom hardened and ground sub jaws to a Model 470W Sliding-Jaw Air Chuck. These hold specially Electro Discharge Machined (EDM) inserts, designed to grip the finished side of the part produced in first machining operation. Additional machine clearance was required at this stage, so the chucks are also mounted to custom Vertical base plate risers. This accommodates for the machine clearances.
Finally, this chuck also includes a special air detect axial locator, with 1 air port on the part banking surface, for positive part seat confirmation.
Are you looking for a custom work holding solution that includes a collaborative design process? Then get in touch today and discuss your projects with the Northfield engineering team.
